Web Candy: 48 Days to the Work You Love – the Podcast

Posted by Scott in Scott, Web Candy on April 25, 2009 | no comments

If you have ever dreamed of starting a business, inventing a product and selling it, doing work from home, or making a career out of your passion, this podcast might interest you. I started listening to Dan Miller’s 48 Days Podcast after reading his book, “No More Mondays” This podcast is a companion to the book, “48 Days to the Work You Love” and is excellent support for anyone who dreams of creating an ideal work life.

In each episode, Dan answers questions sent in by people who have read his books, listened to his podcast, and visited his website. The questions all relate to redesigning your life around doing work that is satisfying, fulfilling and that you love to do. Dan offers tips on how to find a job in a tough economy, and how to present your resume, as well as advice on startup business ideas, and transitioning out of an unsatisfying job and into work that you feel you were meant to do. I’ve been listening to this podcast for awhile and I really get the sense that Dan Miller cares deeply about helping people. This give the podcast a little more added weight, in my opinion. While there are many PROs with this podcast, there are some potential CONs as well. Read the rest of this entry »

How Much Money Should You Save Before Quitting Your Job?

Posted by Tammy in Planning, Tammy on April 24, 2009 | 7 comments

The Question: How Much Money Do I Need to Have Saved Before I Quit My Job?

The Answer: Exactly $28,436.26

If you’re scratching your head right now and the thought, That’s Bullshit is running through your mind, good for you! Read on…

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Self-Employment Progress Report for April 2009

Posted by Scott in General, Scott on April 23, 2009 | 2 comments

This past month was a bit bumpy. As Tammy wrote about in her Murphy’s Law Strikes Back post, her mother became intestinally challenged. This resulted in a little removing and reorganizing of her innards. So progress this month was a little slower than expected but I’m still moving forward.

Better Time-Management

In my last update, I talked about the need to better manage my time. This is improving steadily. Although, it has a lot to do with a deepening of the conviction I have for achieving my goals. The more obsessed I become about my goals, the less I find myself easily giving in to time-wasting activities. This is affecting my thinking as well as my actions. Also, I have a strong desire to develop better time-management habits. This seems like it’s absolutely essential to working for yourself. How can anyone effectively work from home or become self-employed without the ability to stay focused and manage multiple projects without getting lost in details?

Ebook Project

This is on track so far. In phase 1, I have to complete writing the posts in the motivation series. These posts will be the foundation for both the free and paid versions of my motivation ebooks. So that’s step one. I expect to have all of these written by the next update. Read the rest of this entry »

Web Candy: Windows Live Writer

Posted by Tammy in Blogging, Tammy, Web Candy on April 18, 2009 | 1 comment

Scott and I use Wordpress for our blog. While it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to accomplish the basics with Wordpress, there’s still plenty to learn if you’re new to blogging. If you’re not a seasoned pro with your blogging platform, you may find that it takes you twice as long to tweak the “details” of your post as it does to actually write the content. One thing we’ve struggled with – until recently – is adding photos and things like Twitter badges to our blog. Yeah, it can be done. But for me, it was way too time-consuming doing it from within Wordpress. And God help me if I needed to move anything around or change anything.

I don’t do code. I do drag-and-drop. I could learn how to do code, but I’d kinda’ rather punch myself in the mouth. I’m also about the furthest thing from a Wordpress Guru you’re likely to find.

So, you probably noticed that our blog started out with no photos and now just about every post is dressed up with some kind of picture. Well, that’s because I found a very simple program that has made the blogging process a little simpler and less time-consuming, and it makes inserting pictures easier than falling off a log.

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Murphy’s Law Strikes Back

Posted by Tammy in General, Tammy on April 17, 2009 | 4 comments

Murphy’s Law: Anything That Can Go Wrong, Will Go Wrong.

As we’ve explained before, we try to keep it real here at Quitters. Among other things, that means we want to be open and honest about the obstacles that come up that make it challenging for us to pursue our goals of becoming successfully self-employed. With that in mind, I wanted to post a quick update to explain my recent unexpected absence. Friday, a large glowing metallic disc descended from the night sky and hovered several inches above the ground in our back yard. Ok, I wasn’t really abducted by aliens. But that would’ve made for one helluva’ blog post, wouldn’t it?! Ok, on a (somewhat rare) serious note…

On Saturday, April 4th, my mother underwent emergency surgery to repair a perforated colon. If any of you are considering it, I would definitely recommend against having a perforated colon. It’s not a good thing. Even though it was broke, the surgeon apparently liked Mamma’s colon, because he decided to keep about 8 inches of it.

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Jobs, Jobs, Jobs—The US Government Wants You!

Posted by Scott in General, Scott on April 15, 2009 | no comments

There’s no denying that we’re going through some tough times. Unemployment is high, businesses are closing, and while the country is solidly in a recession, any family struggling due to job loss is most definitely in a depression. However, some people will turn a job loss into an opportunity for starting their own business or striking out as consultants or independent contractors.

But for many would-be entrepreneurs, the pressure they feel from their job loss and their immediate need for dependable income means they must first relieve this pressure before entertaining the idea of starting a business or working from home. If you’re one of those people, I may have some good news for you. Read the rest of this entry »

Review: The Unconventional Guide to Working for Yourself

Posted by Scott in Scott on April 10, 2009 | no comments

As a Quitter, I’m always on the lookout for resources, websites, books, podcasts and anything that will help me learn more about self-employment opportunities, work-from-home business options—anything that could lead to developing new sources of income and would result in being able to leave behind the work-a-day life I inherited as an American-born person. Some links lead to junk while others lead to gems. And recently, I found a very sparkly gem in the form of an ebook called, The Unconventional Guide for Working for Yourself (UGWY).

A Little World Domination Never Hurt Anyone

Before I tell you about The Unconventional Guide… written by Chris Guillebeau, I want to share with you the story of how I discovered it. Why? Because this is an example of someone who had a product to market and did everything right, which ultimately lead to a sale. If this isn’t proof that he knows how to work for himself, I don’t know what is.

Recently, my wife, Tammy, was reading the IttyBiz blog. IttyBiz is “a place to get tips, advice, motivation, and support for your very small business.” In a post that Tammy found on IttyBiz, Naomi Dunford said:

Once upon a time, maybe in November, my friend Chris Guillebeau wrote a post. Because it wasn’t appropriate for his blog (it’s way too short and it involves giving people the finger and that’s just not how he rolls at Art of Non-Conformity), he sent it to me.

(By the way, if you are one of the nine people on earth who have not read his ebook, you might want to pick it up. It’s called ‘The Unconventional Guide to Working for Yourself: Creating Personal Freedom through a Very Small Business’.)

That caught Tammy’s attention so she clicked on the link to the Art of Non-Conformity site. Aside from being impressed with the look and content of the site, she clicked a link that, again, caught her attention. Read the rest of this entry »

Web Candy: Business Opportunities Weblog

Posted by Scott in Scott, Web Candy on April 5, 2009 | 3 comments

I don’t know about you, but I consider myself an idea person. I suspect that most entrepreneurs or enterprising individuals probably consider themselves the same. If you’re in that category, then I suggest that you surf on over to Dane’s Carlson’s Business Opportunity Weblog. His site is a treasure-trove of start-up opportunities and real-life stories. It’s just the kind of site for people looking for a little inspiration or stimulation for their own enterprising ideas.

BOW has been serving the entrepreneur community since 2001. From the “About” page, the site is described as “a moderated list of legitimate business opportunities for entrepreneurs. It is presented like a weblog with chronological archives and extensive outbound links.” Read the rest of this entry »

Web Candy, Cool Tools, and Awesome Apps

Posted by Tammy in Tammy, Web Candy on April 3, 2009 | no comments

Ok, so we were hangin’ out in the home office recently, both working on the blog, and trying out this nifty application somebody had told me about. We both thought the thing was an ass-load of helpful, by the way. And I thought, Hey, I bet some of our readers would think this whatchamacallit is an ass-load of helpful, too. What can I say? I’m considerate like that. So we bounced around the idea and thought it would be a pretty damn cool thing if we did a post – maybe once a week or so – about some awesome thingamajigger we’ve found or a funny, useful, brilliant, or insane website that you might enjoy. So, our new category – Web Candy – is that thing. If you ever want to find all the posts relating to the aforementioned cool gizmos, they’ll all be in one place filed under the “Web Candy” tab. Now, how freakin’ convenient is that?

Look for Web Candy starting tomorrow…

Do You Overlook Small Details that Impact Motivation and Success?

Posted by Scott in Motivation, Scott on April 3, 2009 | 3 comments

Motivation Series, Part 5.  Check out part 1, part 2, part 3, & part 4.

You want to stop eating sweets but you keep a jar of M&Ms on your desk. You honestly want to quit smoking but you have packs of cigarettes lying in every corner of your life so that you’re never far from that temptation. You want to start paying down some debt yet you keep several credit cards with you at all times. These details often go overlooked but have a very big impact on your level of motivation and success. Ignoring these small details often means the difference between progress and frustration.

Little, Tiny, Baby Steps

If the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, does it matter how big your feet are? Nope. Does it matter how big your steps are? Nope, again. The truth is, the only thing that matters is that you take a step…then another…and another. One little, tiny, baby step is just as good as a giant leap; you’re still moving forward.

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