Friday, July 31, 2015

07-29-15 Sponging It Up

Do The Work
(book) (26mins)

Meditate
(34mins)
- Invocations

The Tim Ferriss Show
(podcast) (15mins)
- Thomas Edison's Formula for Greatness

*Entrepreneur on Fire
(podcast) (30mins)
- 1005: How to avoid climbing the wrong ladder with Stephanie Crowder
- Stephanie is the Director of Member Success at Fizzle. With a background in training, coaching and executive leadership at Groupon, she launched a career coaching business designed for ambitious young women. She recently joined Fizzle's team as she strives to help even more people uncover their true talents & grab a hold of the lives they desire

Work
(8hrs 39mins)

*Entrepreneur on Fire
(podcast) (30mins)
- 1003: How to know when it's time to quit with Barrett Brooks
- Barrett is 1/3 of the trio from Fizzle.co, a community of entrepreneurs building businesses they believe in. Fizzle provides training, community, and coaching for anyone building an online business. Press and hold link to visit the page Show Notes Page Resource: Death to stock photo, The Great Discontent Book: Linchpin, Mastery

Entrepreneur on Fire
(podcast) (30mins)
- 988: How to do good things in life and still WIN with Jay Buys
- Jay is the Co-founder and CEO of Visceral, a boutique creative agency that crafts digital products for the world’s leading causes and socially conscious organizations. Press and hold link to visit the page Show Notes Page Resource: This Good World Book: You're My Favorite Client

*The Dough Roller Money Podcast
(podcast) (34mins)
- DR 185: Applying Getting Things Done to your Finances
- Recently I read the 2015 edition of David Allen’s widely popular book, Getting Things Done—The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. The previous edition was an eye-opener for me, although to be honest, I didn’t implement his system. This time is different. I’ve jumped head first into the GTD cult. In this article I’m going to walk through how I implemented GTD, including the tools I use. I’m also going to cover how you can use GTD to improve your finances. To get starting, let’s look at the 5 steps of the Getting Things Done system: The 5 Steps 1. Capture: Use an in-basket, notepad, or voice recorder to capture 100% of everything that has your attention. Little, big, personal and professional—all your to-do’s, projects, things to handle or finish. 2. Clarify: Take everything that you capture and ask: Is it actionable? If no, then trash it, incubate it, or file it as a reference. If yes, decide the very next action required. If it will take less than two minutes, do it now. If not, delegate it if you can; or put it on a list to do when you can. 3. Organize: Put action reminders on the right lists. For example create lists for the appropriate categories—calls to make, errands to run, emails to send, etc. 4. Reflect: Look over your lists as often as necessary to determine what to do next. Do a weekly review to clean up, update your lists, and clear your mind. 5. Engage: Use your system to take appropriate actions with confidence. For me there are three key parts to this system: 1. The ‘Snap Your Finger’ Test: As part of the capture phase, I record every thought, idea, inspiration, or to-do into my system. It gets everything out of my head and down on paper (or into Evernote as you’ll see in a minute). As part of this, I ask a simple question. If I could get anything accomplished by snapping my fingers, what would I do? This simple question triggers the imagination and gets the ideas flowing. 2. The 2-Minute Drill: Following David Allen’s 2-minute rule has increased my productivity exponentially. Rather than putting things off that are quick and easy to handle, I do them immediately. This is particularly useful when it comes to managing paper around my house or office, especially mail. 3. The Power of the Next Step: Big projects can overwhelm us. One way to break down the projects into manageable pieces is to start with the next step. Not all of the steps. Just the next one. I write it down for every multiple-step project. Tools As helpful as the Getting Things Done approach to productivity is, it won’t work without the right tools. I’ve tried several, including OmniFocus and even Scrivener. By far and away the best tool, however, is a combination of Evernote and a paper scanner. Through the use of just a few notebooks and nested tags, you can easily create a GTD system inside Evernote. The place to start is with a free resource called The Secret Weapon (no, I’m not kidding). Through a series of easy to follow videos, you’ll see exactly how to set up Evernote for GTD. I customized my setup in a slightly different way. Basically I gave my “when” tags different names. It will all make sense when you watch the videos. Rather than using tags such as Now, Soon, Later, and so on, I opted for Today, This Week, Next Week, This Month and Someday. The paper scanner helps you get everything into Evernote very easily. I use a ScanSnap, which can scan directly into Evernote. Applying it to your Finances Once you have your GTD system setup, applying it to your finances is easy. There are a few additional tools you may want to use, however. A good budgeting tool and investing tracking tool are important. One option to cover both is Personal Capital. You can easily connect your bank accounts, credit cards, and investment accounts. Once connected, you can manage all of your finances in one place. For those that one just a budget tool, YNAB is the best option in my opinion. With the right tools in place, the next step is to capture every aspect of your financial life. Here are some ideas: Filing CabinetsBillsInvestmentsTaxesDebtCars (e.g., title, registration fees, etc.)InsuranceBank statementsWillsTrustsAirline or Hotel RewardsBooksReceipts Some of this will mean piling paper on a table to sort through. Some of it will mean a brain dump (remember the ‘snap your fingers’ test) of things you’ve been meaning to do for a long time (e.g., finally get a will or rebalance your investments). Once you have everything out of your head and out on the table, start processing each item using the 2-minute drill. For items that will take longer or are part of a project, record the next step. And use Evernote to save reference material (with the help of your brand new scanner). The post How To Apply ‘Getting Things Done’ To Your Finances appeared first on The Dough Roller.

Tangentially Speaking
(podcast) (1hr)
- 3 - Tao Ruspoli
- This week, Christopher joins Tao Ruspoli a flamenco guitarist, Italian prince, and accomplished film-maker in Ruspoli's camper van to talk about drugs, what it's like to work with Oliver Stone, and Roman Polanski's match-making skills.

Zero to Travel
(podcast) (30mins)
- How To Work And Travel Through South America As a Digital Nomad With Fabian From StartUpDiaries.org : Zero To Travel Podcast
- My guest in this episode of the Zero To Travel Podcast takes the digital nomad lifestyle to the extreme. Adventurer, Digital Nomad & Entrepreneur Fabian Dittrich is the founder and CEO of Helpando and creator and leader of StartUp Diaries. Fab worked and traveled through South America as a Digital Nomad in his mobile ‘office’, a Land Rover Defender called La Oficina. Today he shares his experience running a business while traveling overland and teaches you the secrets to finding your work/travel/life balance. Is it worth it to run a business while you travel? Can you manage a whole company on the road in South America? And create a documentary along the way with little experience, giving insight to people who redefine work? Listen to the show now to find out how it can be done! You’ll Learn: Logistics of running a business from a Land Rover Defender (in South America)How much a business interferes with the travel experienceHow to manage clients across different time zonesHow to balance adventure and workBenefits of a Digital Nomad Lifestyle (think Freedom and Empathy)How to design your life and take a different pathConquering the fears of potential issues on the roadAbout many South American locals doing creative things (and redefining work)Rewards of Business, Travel, Documentary experienceValuable resources and suggestions about technology (to create ease and efficiency) Resources Mentioned: HelpandoStartUp DiariesCalendlyThe Four Hour Work WeekArt of Designing Your Own PathBase CampAlfred AppFabian Dittrich

07-28-15 Sponging It Up

Financial Peace - Dave Ramsey
(book) (40mins)

Meditate
(30mins)
- Holosync: The Dive
- Outside under tree

Work
(4hrs 10mins)

*Mixergy Interviews
(podcast) (1hr)
- #1182 How to amaze people with big, caring gestures – with Jayson Gaignard
- A few weeks ago there was an entrepreneur at my office having a drink with me. One of the things I asked him was, “Why are you going to Jayson Gaignard’s event? You have to travel cross-country to go to this event. You’re not a big events person. What is it about Jayson and his event that makes you want to fly out?” You’ll be surprised by the answer. And this entrepreneur wasn’t the only one. Several others had told me how Jayson wins them over. I invited him here to teach us how he does it. Jayson runs an event called MastermindTalks. It’s an invite only event for entrepreneurs. Jayson Gaignard is the founder of MastermindTalks, an intimate, invite only event designed for elite entrepreneurs who want to connect with likeminded leaders they wouldn’t have access to otherwise.
- "Business like life is all about how you make people feel."
- "The extra mile is never crowded"
- Creative Gifting, look deeper into people's interests and passions

*The Art of Charm
(podcast) (48mins)
- 428: Geoff Woods | The Mentee
- Make the move from burnt-out employee to visionary entrepreneur by surrounding yourself with the right mentors and the right ideas. "Be more interested in them than trying to get them to think that you are interesting." -Geoff Woods The Cheat Sheet: Learn why you should consider making the move from employee to entrepreneur.What are the five steps you can take to find your ideal mentor?How do you grab a potential mentor's interest?Become a person who constantly adds value to the mentor-mentee relationship..Discover what it takes to become a master networker.And so much more... Show notes at http://theartofcharm.com/podcast-episodes/geoff-woods-the-mentee-episode-428/

Bulletproof Radio
(podcast) (1hr)
- Jia Jiang: Seeking Rejection, Overcoming Fear & Entrepreneurship - #237
- Jia Jiang comes on Bulletproof Radio today to discuss his journey on seeking rejection, which takes him from getting free donuts at Krispy Kreme to panhandling in Austin, Tx. He also explains how to build a rejection proof team and overcoming fear. Jia Jiang is an entrepreneur, speaker, blogger and author of Rejection Proof. After being turned down by an investor he decided he needed to learn to deal with rejection and set out to spend 100 days getting rejected. Applying what he learned, Jia’s life goal is to build a world in which we are no longer crippled by the fear of rejection. He is making this a reality through his blog, social media talks and his recent book. Jia’s story has been shared on CNN, Yahoo News, Time Magazine and Bloomberg Businessweek.

Tangentially Speaking
(podcast) (1hr)
- TOMA 12 (New York City)
- In which I decide to live in New York City and wander into a solid gold trap.

Drawing
(1hr 20mins)
- Shading Roses

The Tim Ferriss Show
(podcast) (1.5hrs)
- Ep 53: Ed Cooke (Part 2), Grandmaster of Memory, on Mental Performance, Imagination, and Productive Mischief
- Part 2 of 2... Ed Cooke is a dear friend and a Grandmaster of Memory. In 2010, he was interviewed by a journalist named Joshua Foer. Under Ed's Yoda-like training, Joshua became the very next American Memory Champion in 2011. It took less than a year for Ed to transform a novice from unknown to world-class. But how?!? Aha... This interview explores Ed Cooke's brilliant techniques (many of which I use), strategies, and practical philosophies. To boot, he's also a wicked funny bastard!

Vegabonding
(book) (24mins)

07-27-15 Sponging It Up

Zorba the Greek
(26mins)
- Chpt 13

Work
(4hrs)

London Real
(podcast)
- Elliott Hulse – The Body Is The Mind
- https://londonrealacademy.com/episodes/elliott-hulse-the-body-is-the-mind/Ready to become the strongest version of yourself?It’s the goal of those that are part of our London Real Academy but also the goal of today’s guest, the legendary strength coach and former pro strong man Elliott Hulse. Elliott is known across the internet for his passion for self-optimisation. He has ruthlessly gathered knowledge and expertise in reaching peak performance physically, mentally and spiritually. Elliott is a powerhouse of thought and passion. In one moment vulnerable and open about his own issues and then direct and pointed with learned wisdom. Today’s episode of London Real will make you get off your ass today and start making changes. It’s not for the faint hearted, it’s for the warriors on the journey. Sometimes our guests take our motto to a new level. Embrace the challenge.Ladies and gentlemen, London Real presents Elliott Hulse.

Meditate
(22mins)
- 10 min Guided
- 10 silent

07-26-15 Sponging It Up

Work
(8.5hrs)

Vegabonding
(book) (45mins)

*Entrepreneur on Fire
(podcast) (25mins)
1007: A five-prong approach to monetizing with Andy Perdue
- Andy is a third-generation newspaperman who has written about the wine regions of Washington, Oregon, British Columbia and Idaho for nearly 20 years. He is the editor and publisher of Great Northwest Wine and wine columnist for The Seattle Times. Press and hold link to visit the page Show Notes Page Resource: FizzleOnFire.com Book: The $100 Startup, Entrepreneurial Journalism

*The Unmistakable Creative
(podcast) (50mins)
- Taking the Risk of a Career Do Over with Jon Acuff
- Jon Acuff talks about writing multiple books and the critical ingredients for a career do over. HIGHLIGHTS How creative frustration led to the star of Jon’s first blogWhy we have a tendency to write off our defining momentsThe great lie of apathy that keeps people standing on the sidelinesThe role that community plays in every creative endeavorExploration as the path to finding our purposeDealing with the weight of other people’s voices when we pursue our dreamsWhy we throw logs into the fire that keeps us from doing work that mattersLetting go of our responses and reactions to criticism How to keep self awareness from turning into self obsession Asking How you Can Help vs How you Can SellLessons learned from Jon’s time working with Dave RamseyThe 4 critical elements of a career do over QUOTES Hard work and hustle tend to reveal purpose When you start to see people as your platform, you stand on top of them. Jon Acuff is the New York Times Bestselling author of five books including his most recent, Do Over: Rescue Monday, Reinvent Your Work and Never Get Stuck. For 17 years he’s helped some of the biggest brands in the world tell their story, including The Home Depot, Bose, Staples, and the Dave Ramsey Team. Most recently he’s spoken to hundreds of thousands of people at conferences, colleges, companies and churches. Featured regularly on national media, Jon has been seen on CNN, Fox News, Good Day LA and several other key outlets.

*Zero to Travel Podcast
(podcast) (50mins)
- Learning Through Travel: Gap Year, Career Breaks, and Beyond with Jennifer Miller from bootsnall.com : Zero To Travel Podcast
- we dive deep on the topic of learning through travel, Gap Year, career breaks, and beyond. I had the pleasure of sitting down with Jennifer Miller, head editor at BootsnAll, project developer for the Travel Access Project, and the co-author of Bottles to Backpacks: The Gypsy Mama’s guide to REAL Travel With Kids. The dominate theme was travel as a form of education (at any age), and the value of learning through roaming. Is this the best way to learn? Should everyone travel for some period of time if it’s within their means? We dig into some tough questions and cover much more. Give this show a listen now! You’ll Learn: Why you should take a Gap Year (and how a year of travel can help you learn and grow)How the world is the perfect classroomWhy it is important to explore different culturesBenefits of traveling abroad for childrenBootsnAll’s mission to change the education system (and mandate 1 year abroad for high school or college students)About the philanthropic arm of BootsnAll (The Travel Access Project)How The Travel Access Project will help students find clarity and direction (and how travel mentors abroad will guide them toward their true passions)What a career break can do for youHow to get creative when things don’t go as planned (look deep within to explore your best path)Advice to arrange travel with your spouse or partnerTop tips for traveling with children/family (and how not to go crazy)Creating a Travel Portfolio (to produce future opportunities) Resources Mentioned BootsnAll.comzerototravel.com/quitTravel Access ProjectJenn’s EmailGapyear30-studentGapyear30-parentCareerBreak30

*London Real
(podcast) (2hrs)
- Elliott Hulse – The Body Is The Mind
- https://londonrealacademy.com/episodes/elliott-hulse-the-body-is-the-mind/Ready to become the strongest version of yourself?It’s the goal of those that are part of our London Real Academy but also the goal of today’s guest, the legendary strength coach and former pro strong man Elliott Hulse. Elliott is known across the internet for his passion for self-optimisation. He has ruthlessly gathered knowledge and expertise in reaching peak performance physically, mentally and spiritually. Elliott is a powerhouse of thought and passion. In one moment vulnerable and open about his own issues and then direct and pointed with learned wisdom. Today’s episode of London Real will make you get off your ass today and start making changes. It’s not for the faint hearted, it’s for the warriors on the journey. Sometimes our guests take our motto to a new level. Embrace the challenge.Ladies and gentlemen, London Real presents Elliott Hulse.

07-25-15 Sponging It Up

Meditate
(16mins)

Read
(15mins)

07-24-15 Sponging It Up

Money: Master the Game
(audiobook) (45mins)

Work
(4hrs 40mins)

*Chase Jarvis Live
(podcast) (1hr)
- Chase Jarvis LIVE: Tina Roth (aka swissmiss)
- Chase welcomes swiss designer Tina Roth Eisenberg (aka swissmiss) to the studio for a conversation focused on how important are the side projects and how that could be the key to your success.

*Chase Jarvis Live
(podcast) (1.5hrs)
- Chase Jarvis LIVE: Gary Vaynerchuk
- Chase welcomes Gary Vaynerchuk to the studio to discuss his new book "Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy Social World".

Financial Peace - Dave Ramsey
(book) (41mins)

Tangentially Speaking
(podcast) (1hr 10mins)
- 1 - Neil Strauss
- Author of The Game, Neil Strauss joins Dr. Chris Ryan on the premiere episode of his podcast. They talk books and critique each others work.

Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Change Is Happening (07-29-15)

I recently accepted a job in a new city. We will be going from a10,000 population to 200,000. Pretty insane when you look at the numbers. But new opportunities are in the air and  keeping things open. Who knows what may come along. I still have a lot of ideas brewing in my head, in hopes that one day we will break free of the default lifestyle. Expenses are going up a bit, but were moving to a nicer apartment with newer appliances. We are finally getting a dishwasher, washer, and dryer. It has been a pain for the past couple years not having these at our disposal. Creates tension when it comes to meals and wasted time traveling back and forth from parents house to do laundry. We have been able to save some money and almost at the point where a money market account will kick in. Its exciting. I can't wait for my money to start earning me money without busting my ass. I'm excited that my wife and I will gain new friends and expand our circle. At the moment with money and the move things are a little overwhelming but soon enough were gonna be a step closer to where we want to be in life. Its another building block which should play in our favor.

Right now we're focused on packing, taking care of money, getting my truck running (bad alternator), and getting things moved over and settled in.

We're on the right path, can't wait for the continuation of our adventure and journey. I couldn't have done this without the support of my wife, family, and friends. Its a big leap for us to finally get out of the nest. This will be the first year we are more the 50 miles away from home. Time to open up to life and the fruits it offers.