Skip to content

Archive for September 2009

10
Sep

Get By With A Little Help With My Friends

Sometimes, you have a crappy year.

I have a friend who has had this kind of year. He goes by the handle Strawfoot. I won’t go into the details, but it’s been a year that makes me go, “Damn dude.” The icing on the cake came about two weeks ago. A lightning strike near his house fried most of the electronics in his house, including his mac.

So I want to do something nice and get his mac replaced. I wish I could afford to just out right buy one for the guy, but that’s not something within my means right now. Instead, I am giving everyone a chance to get in on this random act of kindness.

I have set up a dog-eared account on pay-pal. Anyone who wants to bring some happy to Strawfoot’s life, feel free to give whatever you can. I don’t care if it’s a dollar, everything counts.

So, help me bring some happy to Strawfoot’s shitty year. Let’s get Strawfoot a mac!

7
Sep

Crush It

crush itCrush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion

I’m not one to go off ranting about the ‘next best thing’. Usually, as soon as something gets popular it makes me like it even less.

That’s just how I roll.

Right now, there is a flood of talk and books about how to use social media to grow your brand. Seriously, every is talking, blogging, and tweeting about “sure fire ways to get thousands of followers and make tones of moneys every month” using social media.

As annoying as most of these voices are (seriously, if you have to tell me your a social media expert I’m gonna probably not really trust that you are… just saying), they have hit upon one HUGE thing. The landscape of business has already changed dramatically.

Take the idea of personal branding. The very fact that everyone, their dog and their grandma are doing it, as well as corporations, CEO’s, churches, movie stars, bands, etc… really should make us stop and think. Twelve years ago, business was dominated by corporations and multi million dollar ad campaign. Now, if your willing to hustle and work it, you can be more effective for your passions and business than any corporation. The time is right for anyone and everyone to actually cash in on what you are passionate about.

Gary Vaunerchuk has been doing this stuff for a few years… for quite a few years. He gets how social media, blogs, facebook, twitter, etc… can actually help you grab your passion by the balls and make money doing what you love. His book Crush It is his road map for how to actually do it.

This ain’t no get rich quick scheme. If you know anything about Gary (for those of you that don’t, go hit up his bio), he believes in working hard at what you love so that what you love can take care of you. Yes, he is a business minded guy, and yes this is a business book, but you gotta understand its still about work ethic, getting down and dirty, busting your ass to make it work. But, the entire game has changed so drastically in the past eight years or so that it is to your advantage to seriously think and rethink about business.

Crush It is a map to this new business landscape. The book is an overview of business strategy, as well as details about how to play that strategy out in the game. It’s not just a pithy book about concepts people talk about at power lunches and board meetings. It’s some rubber meets the asphalt/boot meets your ass type stuff. Have a look for your self. Go download the sample chapter and read it.

The book looks to be a quick, easy read that is gonna give you some direction on how you can take what you already love (photography, quilts, cooking, cats, open source, books… whatever it is), use tools that your probably already using (come on… who doesn’t have a facebook?!?), work your ass off, and make a living at it.

The economy sucks, but the time has seriously never been better to start doing what you love, working hard at it, and getting paid for it.

Now, The book comes out October 13, 09. It’s going to be reliesed in a  hard back edition and a version for the Kindle. Go pre-order it. Come on, you know you want to CRUSH IT.

5
Sep

What would your sign say?

stock is up!What if heaven isn’t about a return on your investment? What if it’s about the kingdom of Yahweh and his messiah swallowing up the broken kingdom of man? What if heaven starts now in how we give, receive the broken and outcast, about how we sacrifice and serve?

If all that was true, what would your sign say?