Lifestyle Redesigned

Well I think it is official, the true Internet Marketing Gurus for the past few years have left the building.  These guys were the mentors to a lot of us looking to escape the rat race and build a life that is better for ourselves.  For me it was the dream to escape the cubicle and travel.  That dream is still alive for me thanks to them.  They taught me a lot while they were online, to to them I say thank you.

Griz has let his secondary domain go, his blogspot blog hasn’t been updated since his “facelift” post.  Vic and Allyn have stopped posting as has Ben.  Leo is taking a break while he works on a big project.  Dave has picked up the torch, and although he still calls himself a newb, the student has become a teacher, and a very good one at that.

So it is time to get to work.  Their sites are still online, and if you need information it is all still there – for now.  But it is time to stop reading and get to work on your own sites.  Take the knowledge they have given you and use it to realize your dreams, whatever they are.

For me, it means putting the nose to the grind stone and cranking out content and backlinks.  I’m finding my groove, but my main problem has always been motivation.  It is tough to put in a full day at work then come home and crank out a few more hours.  But like anything in life, it comes down how bad do you want it.

For me, I realize it is now or never.  Though my job is good, I find myself dreading the daily grind sitting in a cubicle being a cog in a big corporation. As my company grows bigger it is only going to get worse.  I will be free from this job and traveling the world at the end of the next 12 months.  July 4th, 2011 is my independence day.  I’m marking the calendar, I want it bad now, and I’m willing to put in the work to get it…are you?

P.S. – I’m now going to use this blog to chronicle my journey, more for my own benefit by keeping myself accountable, but I’ll add some tips and advice, and try and pick up a small torch where my mentors left off.  Paying it forward as they say.

Today I wanted to give you an update to the first day of starting the new business.  I have to say it was kind of a crap start in all honesty.  I spent the majority of Friday night working on a redesign on a website I promised I would forget about until I launched the rest of my projects.  It’s a passion of mine and pretty hard to stay away from.  I really believe it will turn into something big by the end of next year, if I put in the time and effort.  However it is distracting as I need to get some other projects done.  So I worked on design, getting some articles submitted, and of course did more ‘research’ on the web.  Before I knew it, it was almost four in the morning.  But I got a lot of stuff done, just not the things I had planned.

Now as for this morning, not really going gangbusters.  Got up early, 10am (that’s early after a 4am night) and thought I would get after it today and launch those websites I have been planning for the weekend.  I surfed the web and did nothing in stead.  I spend time coming up with new ideas and not implementing anything…it is starting to piss me off and I know it is costing me money.  Time just flys by.  I need strict goals to stick to…I need to teach myself discipline and execution.  If the method I implement doesn’t work out well…as least I did something.  I’m going to take Leo Demilio’s advice from his Internet Marketing site and start doing  my work off line.  If you haven’t read Leo yet, you really should.  He is a true marketer and gives a different angle to the Niche Marketing business that I think is more long term than a lot of the other promote and forget guys.

Well it is time for me to get offline and get back to work.  I’ve got things to do before I can call this day worthwhile, and a have to get to sleep so I can go play golf tomorrow.

New Goal: Execute My Current Plan Till The End Of The Month.  Then Judge the results.  No more distractions and work off line for the remainder of March.  (Though I’ll still be keeping up here).

I thought this really sets the tone of the relaunch – of my site and my life.

I’ve been struggling to find a proper direction for this site since I started it 10 months ago.  It sure took me long enough, heck it takes less time for a baby to be born.  But that is kind of what this site is like, my new baby.  The new heading for this site is all about lifestyle design.  In other words, living the life the way you want to live and not the way people think we should, or people expect us to live.  Enjoy things today and not putting them off till tomorrow, or when we are too old to enjoy them.  In essence the art of strategically making your life the most fulfilling it can be right now.

So how did I decide on Lifestyle Redesign as my new focus?  It is the major focus of my life right at this moment in time.  I want to free myself from the life I’ve unconsciously developed over the course of the last 30 some years through wrong decisions, or worse – not making decisions and allowing things to go along as they may.  I wanted something more from life and I awoke one day determined to get it.  My original problem was that I didn’t know exactly how I was going to do it.

I went back to old school basics – brainstorming, dreaming, and goal setting.  I took a weekend and listed out my goals and dreams, and what I wanted to do and have over the next ten years.  I started broad and worked back to things that I could achieve every year, quarter, and month.  Now I didn’t get that detailed execpt for the first year, the other nine I left as broader goals.  It really helped me outline what I wanted out of life.

Some of the things on my list:

• Workless – travel more
• More free time
• Not working for someone else
• Learn a foreign language (or two)
• Visit with my family and friends more
• Take up skiing again – in the Swiss alps
• Travel across the world
• And the list goes on…

I noticed that the majority of my items revolved on free time, working for myself, and travel.  How would I achieve these things?  My first step was to find a way to make money that did not require me to be tied down to one place and work for someone else.  The problem was I had to do this while I was tied down to one place and working for someone else…bummer.  This meant my entire free time would be dedicated to trying to start a second business.  I would have to sacrifice friends, family, and social life for the greater long term good.  This would not be fun, but I need to treat it like building a business.

So what type of business did I decide to build?  Marketing.  Internet Marketing to be specific.  I started looking into it about the same time I started this site.  I read all the free information I could, took in the good, got duped by some bad, but by November of 2009 I had figured out a business plan.  Then I took a vacation, and with the holidays didn’t do much of anything till January of 2010.  I started to press forward and started to make some money online.

February rolled around and I really started to put some work in.  I got distracted on more than a few occasions and started reading again instead of doing.  Which is where this site’s new direction came from.  Documenting my journey to lifestyle redesign and making myself accountable.  I’ll probably make some long informative posts here, but most will be updates on goals and progress so that I can keep myself accountable.

So what does march hold in store for me?  I have 10 sites that either need to be started from the ground up, or have more content added and a serious marketing campaign needs to be done on all properties.  For these sites, I’ll be trying 3 separate techniques to try and evaluate if one works better than the other for me.

Where do I stand currently?  One site fully developed, 4 more partially developed, and 5 that need to be built from scratch.

March Goals:

• Launch all 10 Sites
• Run a full marketing campaign on each one
• Increase income from $35 a month

Long Term Goals

• Make $1,000 Per Month by the End of June
• Make $3,000 Per Month by end of September
• Make $6,000 Per Month by end of Year

These are pretty lofty goals for sure, but I believe they are attainable.  I’ve be researching and testing for almost a year now, so I don’t consider myself a complete beginner.  I wouldn’t have been able to make those type of goals a year ago and have a rats ass chance of making them.  It is going to take a lot of hard work and dedication.  I know what needs to be done, the question is whether I have the drive to do it…only time will tell.  But quitting my job by Jan 1, 2011 is my goal.  At that time I’ll be sitting on the beach in Thailand drinking a Singha and appreciating what my new life has to offer.

So from today on, I’m committing to myself and the rest of the interwebs to give up my friends, family, and social life for one year and work my ass off to have a better more fulfilling life.  Here’s to making lifestyle redesign a reality…Cheers!

Well I’m a little late in getting my new years resolutions for 2010 together, but at least they are finally done.  I typically don’t do your standard new years resolutions, I think they are usually too general and too easy to break.  Instead, I like to take a weekend and set out my goals for the year.  Then I break them down into quarterly, monthly, weekly, and finally daily goals.  I like to have a massive action plan to achieve my goals.  It usually works for me.  However the last few years I’ve been in a funk and have not set any goals for myself, and to be brutally honest I achieved next to nothing.  The last two years passed by with next to no real accomplishments.  This year is going to be different.

First I start off with my yearly goals.  I try to break them down by groups.  The groups for this year are financial, personal, health & fitness, things I want, and lifestyle.  From there I brain storm how I want my life to be at the end of the year and come up with some specific goals for each.  Goals that are too broad are way to easy to miss.  For example ‘lose weight’ or ‘get in shape’ are too broad of goals.  I want to lose 20 lbs of fat, gain 10 lbs of muscle, and be a ripped 185.  I want to be in the best shape of my life.  Those are specific goals.  You can break them down further so you have something to achieve monthly and daily.  You can put real milestones in place.

My Goals for 2010

Financial

• Make a full time income of 70K a year from my side work
• Quit my regualr job by Nov. of this year and go to contract work
• Save 10% of my salary for retirement
• Payoff all my debt / live debt free (aside from mortgage and car payment)

Personal

• Stay in better contact with friends and family (call or email once per week)
• Go out on one date per month
• Go out for happy hour/dinner/entertainment one night a month
• Get back into SCUBA (get my divemasters)
• Visit my family at least once a year

Health  & Fitness

• Be in the best shape of my life by November (lose 20lbs of fat, gain 10lbs of muscle, and be a ripped 185)
• Hike at least 1 time a month
• Eat a clean and health lifestyle
• Cut down drinking alcohol – only with friends or on special occasions
• Quit Chewing tobacco

Things

• Buy a new car
• Travel to Thailand for an entire month

Lifestyle

• Always dress to impress at work
• Get a new wardrobe (after I lose the weight)
• Be well kept and stylish in my free time
• Keep a clean house (clean once every two weeks)
• Keep close cleaned and pressed (once per week)

The the nice thing about setting goals is that you can track of what you are doing to make sure you accomplish them.  When you set your daily or weekly to do lists, each item should be helping you realize your goals.  Your goals can also be interrelated.  You can see a couple of mine, where I must accomplish one, before I can move on to the other.  The other nice thing about goal setting is that the list is a living document.  You scratch things off as you complete them, and can add more if time allows.  You can also reflect back on them everyday and week to judge your progress.   This isn’t a list to make at the begining of the year then file away never to be looked at again.

We’ll see how things go.  I plan on having monthly and quarterly milestones to keep me on target.  It is way to easy for the months to slip away.  It is almost the end of January for crying out loud.

Put in another gruelling week of work slogging away at my computer.  Nothing beats working for the man.  I really love having people tell me what to do all day, and making other people really rich.  Then when it comes time for your review, the scoff and sputter and complain that things are tough and all we can give you is 1% raise this year.  What a load of balls.  If trying to find a way to financial freedom doesn’t get you motivated in situations like this, then I don’t know what will.

I’ve come up with a plan to be free from working from someone else by this time next year.  I want the freedom to live and do what I want, and not have to ask permission to take 2 or 3 measly weeks off per year.  What a joke that is.  Sure there are some nice benefits, but if I can make more money and have my life back I will feel so much the better.

I’d love to be able to pick up stakes and move when the summer is just too hot here in Scottsdale.  Get to the mountains for a couple of weeks and cool down.  Or move to Thailand or Europe for a couple of months.  You just can’t do that in a standard 9 to 5 job.  I don’t mind working to make money.  I’ll work darn hard at it.  I just hate to see all my hard work go to line the pockets of someone else.  Someone who pretends like they give a crap about you, but at the first sign of financial hardship would cut you from the payroll faster than you could say pink slip.

So what is this amazing plan?  Well it will be essentially taking on a full time second job for the next 6 months and working my ass off.  I won’t go into the full details, but a lot of hard work and I should be in a good position by June.  Then I’ll reevaluate, before I press on with the next 6 months.  In the mean time at work I’m going to building on my skills and getting ready to be able to do some contract work.

My end goal is to have a contract job for 6-9 months out of the year and travel and visit family with the rest of my time.  I know it can be done, and I also know it won’t be easy.  But there is more to life than going to the office 5 days a week and sometimes more to eke out a living.  Working your ass off during the prime of your life so that you can finally retire and enjoy life when you are old.  I want that life now.  And I’m going to make it happen.

If you are looking to get some exercise at home, an electric treadmill is a great item to have.  It takes all the hassle out of going to the gym, the commute, waiting for the machines, and time wasted.  If you have one at your home you are more likely to exercise than if you have just a gym membership.

When looking for an electric treadmill for your home use, there are many options for you to look through and to choose from.  There are lots of different treadmill manufactures, and the products can have a wide array of gadgets and features.  Buy you want a treadmill that will work for you.

If you are looking for an electric treadmill for your home, you may be looking for something that is a cheap price.  However this is not always the best option.  Sure, you may find a treadmill at a discount, but buying the cheapest electric treadmill is not exactly a wise choice.  You want one that is well manufactured and will last for a long time.  It’s best to budget for a model that is in the $750 – $1,000 price range.  This will give you good quality, a lot of features, and will last a long time.

Now what kind of features should you look for in an electric treadmill?  You will want one that gives you a nice variety of incline settings.  This will allow you vary the difficulty of your workouts my making it seem like you are walking or running up a hill.  Hill running gives a nice cardio workout.

One other feature that is nice to have is the built in heart rate monitor.  This is great to make sure you are exercising in the proper zone for either fat-loss or cardiovascular training.  If you keep your heartbeat within the proper range, it is proven to improve those exercise goals.  Plus you want to make sure you are not stressing your heart too much and pushing yourself too hard, especially if you are just starting an exercise program.

If space is an issue you may want to look at a folding electric treadmill.  These units do as they say, fold up and are easily stored away in a corner of a room.  Sometimes if you have guests coming over you can easily wheel then to another area of your home so your exercise equipment is out of the way.

Depending on where you are in your journey to physical fitness, the weight bearing capacity of your new electric treadmill may need to be a factor.  Some units only support up to 200 pounds, while others can go much higher.  If you are right at the 200lbs threshold, this shouldn’t be much of an issue as your goal is to lose weight.  However if you are greatly over that, you will want to make sure you find a model that can accommodate the extra pounds.  The electric motors run the treadmill and they need to be able to efficiently move the track.

One last feature you may wish to look for is one that varies your workout program.  For instance you can select from flat walking, interval training, or mountain running.  This is a great way to mix up your workouts and increase the difficulty as you get in better physical shape.  Hopefully these tips helped you to narrow your search for your new electric treadmill.

Something crossed my mind today.  As I looked at my calendar I realized I only have 8 weeks left till my upcoming vacation.  I wanted to lose some weight and get in shape before I leave.  Then I thought, what could I really accomplish if I set my mind and actions to it in that same 8 week period?  How much could I improve myself and my life?

What would you want to do if you had 8 weeks to change things?  Would you get fit, lose weight, quit smoking, earn more money?  Would you be nicer to people, enjoy everyday, make someone you care about happy, connect with friends or reconnect with old friends and family?  How much could you accomplish in 8 weeks if you set your mind to it?

That is my challenge.  To be honest, I haven’t felt good, physically, mentally, or financially in so long I can barely remember what good felt like.  I’ve placed myself in a self confined purgatory between work and my empty house.  My TV and internet are my best friends.  Working, sleeping, eating, and then repeating.  I have very few friends left, and growing more distant from my family.  I haven’t enjoyed life in a long time, and I want that back.  I’m going to change my life in the next 8 weeks,  I belive it is possible.

I plan on making a long term goal, and then breaking them down into weekly and daily goals that I can accomplish.  I haven’t quite figured it all out yet, but here is the starting phase.

• Get Fit – Lose 10 pounds and get back into shape
• Get Happy – Enjoy everyday.  We’re here for a good time, just not a long time.  I want to enjoy it
• Make others happy
• Help others
• Reconnect with friends and family
• Make new friends
• Get out and socialize
• Pick up a sport – or discover one I’ve lost
• Get out and do things – hike, take photos, whatever
• Start learning a new language
• Start making more income
• Fix my house
• Take better care of my things, home improvement projects I’ve been putting off
• Take pride in myself and belongings
• Quit Chewing Tobacco
• Don’t Drink for 8 weeks

Well that list is long.  It was more of a brain storm, I’ll need to summarize and organize the thoughts to have some more clear cut goals.  It won’t be easy, I know this.  But I want a better life than I have right now.  That won’t happen by itself and I need to make it happen.

What would you do to better your life in 8 Weeks?

I looking for a new camera lens for my new Canon Rebel XSI.  I’ve only had it a few months and can’t say I’ve taken many shots with it.  The kit lens it came with is just OK, it is 18 – 55mm, image stabilized, auto-focus.  I’m looking for a more all around lens that I can have on my camera most of the time.  It needs to be a telephoto zoom as well.

The problem is that there are so many options out there.  I’m in the market for a consumer lens, I don’t need any of that expensive Canon L glass the professionals use.  Those babies can be in the thousands of dollars.

I’m looking at getting a wide angle to telephoto zoom and there are a couple models that interest me.  I’m reading all the reviews and one doesn’t really stand out above the rest.  I’m thinking of going with either a 28mm -105mm or a 28 – 200mm.  I’d like the extra distance on the 200, but I read that there could be some distortion and other issues.  Plus, so of the reviewers mentioned quality issues and lens creep.

Decisions, Decisions.  I’m in no rush.  I think I may head down to the local AZ camera store with my Canon and see it they will let me take some test shots.  I’m also looking at getting a prime lens for portraits, but one thing at a time.

I broke my point and shoot camera on my last vacation.  I had been carrying it around in my back p0cket for a couple years with no issues, but I guess time and a few extra pounds finally caught up with me.  I had it in my back pocket once again as we were out for a night out on the town.  When I pulled it out to take a couple of pics, I found the LCD screen on the back had been shattered.  I took it as a sign that I should treat myself to a new camera, and that I needed to get back in shape and lose some weight.

I didn’t decide to buy a new camera straight away, my first thought actually turned to getting it repaired.  When the clerk told me that it would cost almost as much to repair it as get a new model, I started to do my research.  There are so many options to choose from, I had my work cut out for me.

Now I truly believe in a point and shoot camera you really won’t go wrong by selecting one of the many comparable models from Canon, Nikon, or Sony.  They all make good camera’s and at this point in the technology curve they will give any user more features and functionality then they could ever want.  Plus they are all readily available at best buy.  So why did I go with the Panasonic Lumix you ask, well I’ll elaborate.

I had read some good things about the Lumix line, and knowing what I did about most point and shoots being comparable, I thought I would go a different route.  The Lumix FS-25 has a large 3″ LCD, 12 Mega Pixels, and other nice pieces of functionality. What set it apart for me, were a few additional features.

It has a nice wide angle Leica lens that is not easily found on the PNS competitors.  It has a 5x optical zoom when most others are at 4x.  The Lumix line is known for good shooting in low light situations, and that is something I like to do as well.  It also has an intelligent auto functionality that sounded really cool and gets good reviews.

More on the Intelligent Auto settings.  Most cameras allow you to select from various settings for portraits, sports, landscapes, etc..  The Panasonic FS-25 does as well.  However with the intelligent auto feature, you can turn it on and your camera will decide what type of setting should be used for the picture.  It is a little more advanced than just leaving your camera on the normal photo mode.  It will actually pic the proper setting/scenario and use those options.  Pretty cool.

The problem I found was actually locating a supplier that sold the Panasonic brand.  Best Buy does not carry it, and I believe only Circuit City did prior to their demise earlier this year.  I had made up my mind that I wanted this camera, but was a little uneasy with not being able to actually hold it in my hand and check it out before I bought it.

I looked online and found Amazon, Adorama, and B&H Camera all carried the model, with Adorama and B&H having the best prices.  I ordered through Adorama as I had used them before when I purchased my Canon Rebel DSLR.  I got the camera, a carrying case, and 4 GB memory card for the list price of the camera itself.  I thought it was a good deal.  The memory card was Kingston, but it was a Class 4, the slowest transfer rate.  So far I haven’t noticed any problems with the slower card, but I may upgrade to a faster one and see if there is any difference.

I have only taken a few shots with it, but I am quite happy with the purchase.  I hope to get out an take a few more snaps when the weather cools down.  I want to be ready for my vacation in November.

The President was in Arizona today as part of the tour to sell his health plan.  Or maybe it was to see what a horrible economy and housing market looks like first hand.  Honestly I’m not really sure why he came.  However, I was more than a little embarrassed by the fact that we had some redneck Arizonans out with their firearms at the protest.  I think it makes us look like a state of backward hicks, which to be honest, we do have a lot of here so it’s not that far off the mark.

Last week on the President’s trip to New Hampshire a protester made the news by sporting his handgun on his leg at a protest there.  It was a big deal for obvious reasons, and the fact that it was not illegal and the police could do nothing about it made it even more crazy.  Of course mindless rednecks, not being able to come up with an idea all their own other than when they have to go to the bathroom decided to do the same thing here.  Except this time one of them came out with an assault rifle.

I have to wonder to myself what these idiots are thinking.  Do they really think it makes them cool or intelligent doing something like this?  I have news for them, it makes them look like a bunch of backwoods hillbilly’s or radical militia members.  Then again with the article I read the other day about militia groups on the rise in the U.S., that may not be too far off either.  But they need to seriously need to pull their heads out of their A**.

Now I’m a supporter of an individual’s right to bear arms and limited gun control, but idiots like this are starting to make me reconsider the later.  I’m a gun owner myself, as are many of my friends and we fully enjoy our right.  But people like this, who like to flaunt it in the face of so many who oppose it just makes it harder for the rest of us who are responsible.  It is people like we have seen today in Arizona that need to be screened before they are allowed to own a gun, or have it taken it away from them because they are irresponsible idiots.

Hey dummies – don’t ruin it for the rest of us, and show your President some respect while you are at it.