In my last post, Become the Best by Being the Worst, I argued that if we want to be the best in one area, we need to be willing to be the worst in other areas. We can’t be the best at everything.

After reading my post, a few people asked, “Why bother being the best?”

It’s simple. The rewards for being the best are outrageous.

For example, in 2009 the minimum salary for a Major League Baseball player was $400,000. However, Alex Rodriguez, the highest paid player in 2009 earned $33,000,000.

In other words, a player earning the league minimum would need to play for more than 80 years in order to earn the same amount that Rodriguez earned in one year. And this is unlikely since the average player’s career lasts less than three years.

It is important to note that a player earning the league minimum is very good at baseball. They are one of only a few hundred people in the entire world to play at that level. However, the most outrageous rewards go to those who go on to perform at an even higher level.

A similar reward curve exists in other careers as well. Good speakers get paid in mugs, pens, gift certificates and plaques. Very good speakers make $4,000-$5,000 per speech. But the best speakers earn more than $100,000 for a short presentation. This is 20 times the fee of other presenters. The rewards for being the best are outrageous.

So why aren’t more of use trying to be the best? It’s because we’re afraid of being one-dimensional. We want to be well-rounded and we’ve been taught that being balanced will make us successful. But that isn’t true.

We take our strengths for granted and think there is nothing to be gained by focusing more time, effort and energy in developing them. So, we focus on our weaknesses instead, because we seem to have more room for improvement in these areas. But there is little or no reward for being a slightly better at our weaknesses. And we’ll only ever be mediocre if we focus on our areas of weakness.

Are you ready to get started?

Would you like to earn 20-80 times more than the people you work with?

Then ask yourself these questions:
- What do I love to do?
- Where do I seem to have a natural advantage?

- How can I move from being very good to being the best?

If you want to learn more about how to be the best, you can check out 20 Questions to Help You Discover Your Strengths and Weaknesses.

Today is September 1st – the birth of a new day and a new month. How are you going to take advantage of this re-set opportunity?

What’s a re-set opportunity? Re-sets are moments when you can re-focus, re-calculate, and re-engage your plans for meaningful action.

It’s easy to get lost in the daily grind and hustle of life. Priorities become fuzzy and attention fades thanks to interruptions, emergencies, and poor self-management. Mashed together, all these speed bumps of productivity can easily derail our grand plans for creative masterpieces and world domination.

So today, let’s hit the re-set button and get re-focused on the work that matters most. But how do we do that?

Such a choice is personal. Some like a leisurely walk. Others prefer re-visiting their “goals” list. A few escape to a new, quiet destination to re-engage.

So, what’s your re-set fancy? How do you like to get back in the groove? Do share!

Photo: Cosmo

You’re in a slight predicament. You know you want to work remotely; that the Untemplater lifestyle is the life for you. You also know that you want to start a passive income stream that gradually turns into a river. What you don’t know is where to start!
The web is a gold mine for savvy entrepreneurs like yourself. In this article, I will walk you through a couple ideas to get your juices flowing: the obvious, the not-so-obvious, and hopefully maybe give you some angles you hadn’t thought of previously. This article is best suited for people who might be newer to the web game but want to start generating some ideas on how to rake in the dough like leaves. This is not a comprehensive guide of every possible way to monetize a website, just a starting point for the young bucks.
Like any paper you’ve turned in for school or any big decision you’ve ever made, the starting point for your new web venture should be research. Before hopping into any business venture, you should thoroughly research the market. But marketing research for web ventures is a-whole-nother topic that I will cover in a future article. For now, I just want to present four different ways to start a streaming income online:

1. Blogging

If you’ve never made a website before, blogs are great to begin with. A saying exists in the blogging community that “content is king”. Don’t take those words lightly. You should always remember that you can’t even think about monetizing a blog without visitors. And the way to retain visitors is through quality content that is relevant to a certain topic. There seems to be a misconception that to make a lot of money blogging, you should blog about the most popular topics. I would almost always advise the opposite way. With general topics comes lots of competition. The best thing to do is pick a small niche and become the authority of that niche. For example, maybe you’re interested in real estate. Instead of blogging about real estate in general, maybe just focus in on real estate in Denver, Colorado (still a very large niche but stick with me for this example). This will help you become an authority for this niche and inevitibly also help your search engine optimization.
When it comes to monetizing your blog, you can choose a variety of ways. The main thing is getting the traffic. Once you have the critical mass, you have a few options. The most basic model is supporting your blog with advertising. Sell ads directly on your blog – sell text ads, banner ads, sidebar ads, whatever. You could also write an e-book and sell it to your blogs visitors. If you’re an expert on Denver real estate, write an e-book about it, show that you’re the number one authority. The third way to monetize would be joining an affiliate program. Join a national network of realtors and gain a commission every time you refer someone. This is the method I chose when I started my gifts for guys website in college. Finally, you could start a premium subscription section to your blog. Reserve the best content for your paying members. Each way has its pros and cons, but all can be very effective ways to monetize a blog.

2. Consulting

Are you an expert at a critical skill? Start a consulting business. If you work in Pay-per-click advertising, become a consultant on the side. You never know how long before you will have enough clients to spin off your own business. The same applies for if you work in SEO, social media, web design, programming, or anything else. You should start with small local clients and build up your portfolio. As your testimonials grow, build out your website and expand to larger clients. Maybe if you’re an SEO consultant, you could team up with a PPC guy and a social media gal and operate under the “online marketing consultation” banner.
Consulting is not easy work. It’s not completely automated income; it takes a lot of time and offline work. It doesn’t really allow for an automated income stream so I was hesitant to include it to this list. However, if you are a well respected consultant, you could be paid for very minimal work or just being on retainer for multiple companies. For examples of the consulting model panning out successfully, see my friends Kyle Lacy and Maren Kate. Both have built blogs from the ground up and turned them into great consulting businesses.

3. Lead Generation

Lead Generation can certainly be one of the most lucrative sources of automated income. The three things to think about when creating a lead generation are:
1) What kind of leads will you be generating
2) Who will be willing to purchase them?
3) How much are they worth?
You can generate leads for nearly anything. Typically, the financial niche will supply you with a great volume of leads and great margins. But if you think the lead business stops at mortgages and insurance sales, think again. Leads can be generated for anything. Take medical procedures for example. Why not start a lead generation service for people suffering from sinusitis? Pick a great domain and create a homepage with a strong call to action for a lead form. The goal is to connect people needing sinus surgeries to surgeons who can perform their needed procedure.
The great thing about generating leads is that once a website is set up, it is pretty hands-off. The only thing you really need to work on is advertising, SEO, and keeping a good relationship with your buyers. After the initial set-up process, lead generation could truly be your gateway to a four hour workweek.

4. Product

Selling a product might have one of the most difficult set-up processes of all of these income stream techniques, but the pay-offs can be great. So great, in fact, that selling product is the model of choice by Tim Ferris in The Four Hour Workweek. Your goal is not to compete with the big dogs. Determine the barriers to entry for a given product idea. Instead of selling  CDs in general on your website, just sell French rap CDs. You might think a particular niche is too small to produce results, but you’d be surprised how many sales you can reap as a market leader in a tight niche. Bon appetite!

A great way to break into selling online products is reselling from wholesalers. Check out world wide brands for a great starting point. Until you get the working capital to develop your own original product, wholesaling is not a bad start. To fully automate your product flow, however, you will need to set up a drop shipping agreement. Drop shipping, for those who aren’t familiar, is effectively a fulfillment company handling the shipping of your product. It might lower your margins paying others to ship for you, but the time saved is what the Untemplater dreams of. While it may seem impossible to streamline the selling process when you’re dealing with a product, there are companies available to handle every single component. A great product idea for a solid niche has great potential to put your income stream on autopilot.

Well there you have it, my four ideas to steer you in the right direction of starting a successful web-based business. What experiences can you share when it comes to monetizing a website or starting an internet business?

If you’ve been following me on twitter, then you’ve been hearing me rant on and off about health as of late. It’s been my main focus of study for the last few months. The main reason I’ve been on it so much is because, well, I think it’s fascinating to learn so much of what I thought I knew to be true and natural regarding health and the world in general, has been shown and proven to be otherwise.

People

As I look more into it, and other things taking place in modern times, I notice a common pattern: we’re gradually moving towards the artificial. This realization started while having a conversation with a friend about relationships. She went on to ask me what type of of women I like. I responded with, “all natural.” She then asked me to elaborate, because from her perspective, “aint nobody natural any more!”

I told her that amongst all these women with makeup, fake hair, nails, plastic surgery, and other enhancements, I strive to search out some defects. You know, any stretch marks, skin impurities, one boob bigger than the other, that sort of thing. Even still, this is not enough to verify anything for certain.

We then went on to have a long discussion about this. Everywhere you look, nature and what is natural seems to be overshadowed behind man-made structures. How does this happen when nature (the mountains, hills, oceans) is epic? I even recently learned that we have some artificial palm trees over here in Cali. This was news to me.

Exercise

A number of people that I come across would rather play Madden then go outside and organize a little football game. I never understood it. Yes, it’s a little difficult to get everyone together because of schedules, but still. If you’ve got enough time to sit down and play hours of Madden then I’m sure you’ve got time to gear up. Not to mention thanks to the wii, exercise has been taken to a whole new level. and given a new look. Getting up and getting active has to be fun for some people to even consider getting up from in front of the tv any more.

Food

In regards to health, I thought it was pretty simple to point people in the right direction.

Eat all-natural, sun-rich foods. Strive to stay organic. Eat plenty of veggies, nuts, fruits and whole grains. Stay alkaline.

This was the advice that I’d give to people. That was until a friend on facebook had introduced me to Dr. Sebi and his teachings. I found Dr. Sebi and teachings to be significant because, well, he claims to be able to heal what others cannot. Sickle-cell syndrome, diabetes, AIDS, cancer, you name it.

There are no incurable diseases only incurable people….‎Curing AIDS? That’s the smallest part of what Africa has afforded Sebi. Curing AIDS is the easiest thing.

-Dr. Sebi

I strive to at least always consider new information and avenues of thinking. I think you should to be open to all new experiences in life. So when something like this is brought to your attention, some people will flat out reject it as ridiculous, some will also flat out agree and believe it, or, if you’re like me, you take the information and look further into it.

Since I was in the neighborhood, I drove down to his office in LA and picked up Beverly Oliver’s book Seven Days in Usha Villa: A Conversation with Dr. Sebi. As most of his claims, it was a series of assertions contrary to everything I’d heard, here in the states.

In the box wheat is natural. Outside of the box wheat is unnatural. Why? Because it contains starch. Nothing in nature contains starch. And everything that was made by man has to contain starch as a binder. But starch is carbonic acid…Any grain that is made, carrots, corn, wheat, rice, these things are starch. Starch is not food.

-Dr. Sebi

These, along with several other claims, earned big “Huh?! WTF is he talking about”points from me. I’ve yet to meet any of his clients-nor have I went out searching for him. I won’t say if he can, indeed cure AIDS, but nor can anyone say that he doesn’t (google “Dr. Sebi vs. New York State Supreme Court”). Even still, the information around AIDS, HIV and some other illnesses has proven to be contradictory to what you’ve heard via mainstream media, which is a whole ‘nother discussion in itself.

What is true

These people acting like they want the truth. But the appearance of the truth is good enough, they don’t want the proof-Talib Kweli

To a person that takes the elevator from the ground to the highest point of the Empire state building, the change in the view is enormous, but to those taking the stairs, you can witness the gradual progression. Similarly, I shouldn’t have to tell you that everything that is deemed as natural nowadays wasn’t always the case. Everyday, if you can take to really think about it, you can witness the history taking place around you. Remember when breast implants were taboo? Yes? No? Some people can’t even fathom life without our current conveniences.

Given the blue and the red pill, most would rather take the blue at any given time. So if you want to make money, there is money to be made in the artificial industry. Fake hair, fake breasts, fake muscles, fake cures to ailments,  fake food, fake trees, fake followers, fake friends, you name it, we have it. It’s here and well stocked.

Nature, which I equate with truth in this post, doesn’t seem to be so important nowadays. If so, it certainly doesn’t seem that popular.

So I ask you, what do you consider natural? How would YOU (personally) even go about verifying such a thing?

Would you say it even matters?

We appear to be in the middle of a talent dry-spell. At every avenue of popular media, there seems to be someone sitting at the top who many believe doesn’t deserve to be there. Miley Cyrus. Megan Fox. Stephenie Meyer. Michael Bay. They’ve all been parts of heated discussions as to whether or not they deserve the accolades given to them, with many arguing that they’re completely talentless hacks. So how do so many people of questionable ability seem to reach the top of their fields.

Simple, Dear Watson… They tried.

Tim Ferris mentions in The Four Hour Workweek that the impossible is usually easier than the mundane. One example he mentions is that Perfect Ten sitting at the bar. Everybody assumes that she’s out of their league, so they don’t even try. So everybody goes after the sevens and eights. The sevens and eights find someone, everyone else gets shut down, and both you and the Perfect Ten end up going home alone.

So many people are afraid of rejection they give up. People like those above figured they had nothing to lose, so they just went for it. Selena Gomez has said she realizes that she’s not Christina Aguilera, but when she was offered a recording contract, she took it anyway, just for fun, and she’s been doing really well ever since.

This Can Help You, However.

Whenever something like this happens, there’s always something of a snap-back that is referred to in some circles as “The Ed Wood Effect.” Ed Wood made some of the best “So Bad They’re Good” films in existence. Acting was clumsy, sets would fall over, and production looked like it was put together with a budget of spare change and hope. Yet, his enthusiasm for the film industry and his lack of resources never stopped him, and he kept soldiering on. At the same time, other people saw his films, and were inspired to finish their works, operating under the thought of “Surely, I can do better than that!!!” I had my own personal inspiration when I learned that Tyra “can’t finish a sentence without using the word fierce” Banks now has a three-book deal.

This is your call to action.

Jokes have been made about what rises to the top in the business. An episode of Will & Grace had Jack struggling with learning lines, to which Karen snaps “how hard can it be? Kate Beckinsale can do it.” If you’re talented in any of these fields, you will be warmly welcomed by those who are getting a little tired of what we’re being offered, and even if you’re not, you’ll still blend right in. You have no more excuses. The old line, “I’m not good enough,” clearly doesn’t work anymore, so what are you waiting for? Apparently, we’re in a dearth of talent, and we need you.

Life in the past was a lot more difficult that it is today. Back during caveman times, any given day could result in getting gored or trampled by a Wooly Mammoth. Even as far back as one hundred years, during the late 19^th century, we were still an agricultural society. There was always a chance of finding a snake in your garden or running into a wolf or a bear on a hunting trip. Life has gotten to be the safest of most secure it’s ever been. That only leaves one problem:

We Need Those Little Dangers In Our Lives

It’s become something of common knowledge that a large number of people tend to die soon after they retire. They no longer get their minds stimulated, so their minds tend to just stop. The mind needs to be stimulated the same way as the body. We exercise to stimulate muscle, challenging it to stay strong and healthy; if we don’t, the muscle wears away. The same thing can happen to the mind. If we don’t give it a few little challenges during the day, it slowly starts to atrophy.

You Need to Create Your Own Challenges

Today, all of our challenges have been conquered. The biggest threat most of us have in our day to day lives is a papercut. So, at this point, we need to create our own challenges to keep our brains going. Most people should try to develop several long-, medium-, and short-term challenges.

Long-Term Challenges

Long-term goals are challenges that you set for yourself that you don’t really intend to ever finish. That might seem like a contradiction, but what it means is that it’s something that you consistently work to better yourself with, and something you always work on.

Some examples of long-term challenges:

• Study a foreign language.
• Pick up a musical instrument.
• Learn some kind of skill (knitting, painting, woodworking.)

Medium-Term Challenges

Medium-term challenges have a much more definite time frame. The simplest way to establish your medium-term challenges is to look at getting certifications. Most local schools (especially trade schools and community colleges) offers programs that range anywhere from 6 to 18 months. Some of these certifications also work as a way to improve yourself in general.

Some good ideas to consider:

• Accounting/Bookkeeping
• Auto Repair
• Massage Therapist (If you live near a college town, this is as good as a license to print money. Colleges like to keep their athletes healthy, and massage therapists are almost always in high demand.)

Short-Term Challenges

Short-term challenges really aren’t. In reality, it’s achieving a constant level of improvement that’s measured in short-term levels. Remember that old phrase your mom told you: “try something new everyday?” Well, the same principle applies, but in some things, every day is a bit much. Find a few things you’d like to improve, and set a fairly short time frame to do them in.

Some ideas to consider:

• Read a new book every two weeks.
• Try a new recipe every week. (NOTE: If you’re single and plan to try this on Date Night, I’d recommend giving it a dry run the night before, just to guarantee you don’t have to serve your significant other charcoal.)
• Begin meditating once a week.
• Try a new restaurant for lunch every Saturday.

Challenges are what keep us going. Keeping your brain active and constantly stimulated is the only way to keep it healthy. Safety has its place, but safety can quickly turn to stagnation, which can lead to atrophy. Atrophy can ruin even the best of us, so fight it. You’ll keep mentally active, better yourself, and might be able to find an enjoyable hobby that you can leverage into some spare pocket money. It’s a win all around.

Failure used to be a dirty word. For some people, it still is. But for anyone who’s tried to hang their own shingle, start their own side venture, or just do something different than what they’ve always done? Failure almost seems par for the course. My own experience was with my first ‘side’ business fixing computers.  While I knew what I was doing (and did a good job) what I didn’t take into consideration was the actual TIME it would take. Going to people’s homes (or having them bring it to me) was a big chunk of time I never anticipated. And when I was at a clients home, I couldn’t do much else, so there was not much else I could do in that time. Big waste. And since it was a lot of  ‘waiting’ for things to happen (running scans, installing software, backing up data, etc) my fees ended up being low compared to the time I had to spend there. When I began my freelance career in web design / development, I remembered that and incorporated hourly rates for certain work.

So how about you: What was YOUR biggest failure? What did you learn from it?

In the first part of this thrilling two-part series I decided that grades didn’t matter to me.

That’s not to say that education and learning doesn’t matter, but that my lecture professor with no real-world experience isn’t going to contribute to any waste of time on useless pursuits or stress. Simply, society’s expectations for myself are not in line with my expectations for myself.

The ROI of getting great grades is not as high as the ROI of getting an education. A real, applicable, trial and fail education.

After engaging in this academic apathy for two years and getting prepared to embark on a third, I have some strategies. Here’s how I manage to not stress about grades while keeping them at a passable level.

1. Use people (in the nicest way possible)

My approach to grades wouldn’t be possible without awesome friends, or my ability to make friends quickly. You’re going to need notes from them because you’ll be working in class or skipping a week of class to attend a conference.

But don’t be a douchebag about it. These are still your friends. Not only do I pay for coffee, late night study pizza, and so on while studying, my friends know I’m there to help them in areas where I’m strong, and I go out of my way to do so.

2. Be honest

Despite popular belief, our professors aren’t idiots. They know when someone isn’t putting 100% into their course. Don’t make excuses or bullshit about it, just be honest with them. In my experience, professors are much more understanding and even helpful when you outline for them what you’re trying to do and why.

3. Don’t be a dumbass

Going back to the answer I received from professionals I talked to, don’t be a dumbass. If you notice a professor going through painstaking measures to explain something, maybe perk up your ears a bit. You might not have time to do the class-assigned readings, but scan them for keywords and infographics.

4. Study smart

“You’re one of those kids I hate, you know that.” I hear that from good friends of mine quite often. I am that guy who waits until the night before an exam to study, if I study at all. Why? Because of smart study habits.

Great study habits change from person to person, so what works for me might not work for you. I’m uberADHD, so I know not to study for more than 30 minutes without a mental break. I limit my studying to information I know will be a big topic on the test and ignore the other stuff. I ace those questions because I have much less to remember, and I can usually pull a 75-25 ratio on the other stuff. Find a strategy that works for you, but don’t be afraid to tweak it every so often.

Education never ends

All of that stuff is great. But if you’re just doing that and not working on learning elsewhere, you’re just being lazy. Here are some tips on customizing your own education.

1. Use your resources

I’m paying for all these books, computers and professors, so I might as well utilize them, right? Talk to your professors; ask them for advice, tips, etc. Don’t limit it to just your current or former professors. I receive fantastic guidance, advice and knowledge from Professor Mitchell, who I’ve never had as a professor. Not only does she keep me on track and call me out when I need it, she’s there to help me develop skills, like photography, that I’ve never received training in but would like to.

2. Get involved – on your own terms

This is where I messed up in high school – I had mediocre grades and I didn’t do much outside of class. Join organizations, but not just for the hell of it. Know how you want to help, what skills you want to develop, and offer your services to that group. For me, this ranges from website development, graphic design, social media and marketing, depending on the organization. It’s a win-win situation.

3. Get working

Get a job, internship, or something in the field you want. Or, like with school organizations, pitch your employer on what you can offer them in addition to your current position. My buddy Patrick is getting the restaurant he works at into the social media realm. He still has a job, and he gets to develop his skills.

Can’t find a way? Don’t be afraid to ask. Or do it on your own. If you’re in advertising, write up a campaign plan for a local charity and ask to pitch it to them. They may take it, they may not, but at the very least you have something to put in your book.

4. Become an excellent time manager

This is where I got royally screwed this past year. I’ve never been good at managing my time, but managed to get away with it. This past school year, there were weeks where I ran on about two or three hours of sleep per night. I’m still not an excellent manager of time, but I’m getting better.

That’s it. Seems simple, right? It starts with the ability to do one thing – let go of the traditional concern about GPA but maintain a thirst for learning.

If you can do that, you can do anything.

photo credit

Do you hear people complain about being busy as much as I do? Apparently everyone has issues with it! As a business coach 90% of my clients ask for my help with their time management skills. But what is time management? Unless you can slow down reality, you can’t manage time. (and if you can I hope you are making millions!)

We all have the same amount of time, so we can only manage the choices we make. But we need to make a massive amount of choices. We are bound to make mistakes. Here are the two problems I see:

We Do Not Like the Choices We Make.

Everything in life has a choice. You may say, “Paying my insurance is not a choice,” but it totally is. We choose to pay our bills because we need the services more than the money. We choose to work at a job we don’t like because we want the income, and everything the income provides.

Here are a few tools I use that help you determine what choices work for you and what doesn’t.

Absolute Yes

I like to use the tool called the Absolute Yes by Cheryl Richardson. Whenever you are confronted with a choice ask yourself, “Is this an absolute YES?”

This method helps you determine actions that you don’t want to do before they go on your schedule. For example when you receive an invitation to a wedding ask yourself “Is this an absolute YES?” Do you really want to go to the wedding, or do you think you should go?

Even if your answer is no, it doesn’t mean you won’t go. It’s asking the question that helps. It makes you more aware of the events that you want to participate in. You consciously choose.

This clears the slate. There is no regret later because the choice had intention.

I had a personal coaching client that used this technique. She was a talented, smart woman in the marketing field. She was amazed at the impact it made. She said, “I realized I should never be controlled by my situations, but rather working toward creating the situations I want.”

Shoulds

We also cloud our choices with the things we should be doing. I should volunteer because that’s what a good person does. I should be successful. I should exercise. Don’t should on yourself.

When we use the word should, it devalues our choices. If you think, “I should be making more money right now,” It devalues where you are right now, and the process you are going through.

If you only do what you should be doing instead of what you want to be doing, you will not like your choices. The reason? They are not your choices, they come from outside sources. The word should implies that someone else thinks the choice is right. Our to do lists are full of shoulds.

The best way to combat choices that are not your own is to set your priorities. Once you determine what you want to do, and put them first, the things you should do lessen.

We Do Not Know What To Choose.

If you ask yourself “Is this an absolute YES?” and do not know the answer, then you need to take time to figure out what you do want.

In Alice in Wonderland, Alice needed to choose a path. She asked the Cheshire Cat which direction to choose.

The cat asked where she was trying to go, but Alice replied, “Anywhere, as long as I go somewhere.” The cat replied, “If you don’t care where you’re going, it doesn’t make a difference which path you take.”

If you do not know your priorities and what you want to enjoy in life, then you end up with a life you do not enjoy. It’s a not a life that you control, it’s a life that controls you.

Your Action

Take some time today to figure out what is truly important to you. Freedom? Experience? Giving value to the world? Write it down. Use that to help you determine what to put on your schedule. Once you start to shape your actions based on those priorities, you will be amazed at the enjoyment you receive from what you do. Every action matters.

You will no longer be doing something because you should do them, you will be doing things because they are important to you.

Time management is not something we can do, but choice management is. If we can consciously make our choices, we can take control over our busy schedules. Once we have control over our schedules, we gain control over our destination.

You only have one life, so make the best choices you can.

How do you feel about your choices? How do you handle the moment when you make a decision?

photo credit

It’s link round-up time! Today we’re celebrating Dirty Dancing, which came out on August 21st, 1987 and went on to become a massive box office hit despite being a low-budget film with no star names attached!

You can watch the movie in honor of today if you want, but I’m going to spend the day dreaming big, because sometimes the underdog wins and sometimes success comes by NOT following the formula.

Don’t forget, Untemplater is opening up our link round-ups to our community. This is a great way for you to get noticed by the Untemplater community, to drive traffic to your website, and to get those coveted back links to your best blog posts. If you want to throw your recent article or blog post in the mix for the next round-up, simply go to http://bit.ly/dDigsh.

Mobile Lifestyle

How Sean Ogle Quit His Job and Became a Location Independent Rockstar by Cody McKibben of Thrilling Heroics

Anyone interested in working for yourself and vagabonding around the world, you’ll dig Sean Ogle if you don’t already know him. Watch this great video discussion Cody had with Sean recently in Bangkok, Thailand. Sean is a lifestyle design and digital nomad pimp!

Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed by David Cain of Raptitude

Big business has been working for decades to create millions of ideal consumers, and they have succeeded. To maximize sales, they want to keep the general public tired, hungry for indulgence, and vaguely unfulfilled so they continue spending loads on convenience and entertainment. The 40-hour workweek is the perfect tool for making us all into that kind of customer. Unless you’re a real anomaly, your lifestyle has already been designed.

15 Tips to Conquer Kuala Lumpur by Migration Mark of Migrationology

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia includes sensational activities like browsing markets, eating durian buffets, relaxing in lush gardens, letting fish eat your feet, seeing Hindu cave temples, and eating a diverse range of international cuisines. Take a leap towards Kuala Lumpur to experience a habitat where ultra modern technologies blend into a surrounding of natural tropical botany, where a love camaraderie for all things edible percolates through a world of different cultures, and where everyone is encouraged to become their own gastronome!

5 Ways You Reclaim Your Dignity By Working Online by Antonia Anderson of A Nomad’s Lot

Many corporate work environments are designed to strip you of your dignity and make you into an obedient lapdog. By contrast, working online makes you glad to be human. From continual personal growth to morning sex, every day is a reminder of why you fled the cubicle.

Cheap and Chic: How To Travel For Less in Europe by Nina Sarmiento of Gypsygals Tales

Summer is the perfect time to visit Europe. But this continent some of the most beautiful sights, traveling here is quite pricey. There are some ways to cut cost without sacrificing comfort and style!

How to Travel Outside Your Comfort Zone by Daniel Noll & Audrey Scott of Uncornered Market

How to rock the world…and let it rock you. Ideas on how to test the boundaries of your comfort zone while traveling…or just living.

Relationships

Modern Love by Joshua Hitchcock of How To Be Awesome

A personal exposition of love and relationships in the modern world. We live in a fast-paced, nomadic world – a world not designed for long term relationships to develop and flourish. This article seeks to make sense of it all and provide guidance for those balancing love, work and travel.

Should I Stay Or Should I Go? by Graham Phoenix of Male eXperience

The Clash’s famous song is a cry heard from many men. They are confused because she won’t make her mind up. But she is a woman, she needs certainty from the man, not the other way round. It is important to look at the situation from a woman’s point of view, men! Aliyah, in ‘Try Again’, lays bare her thoughts on mens’ reactions to her indecision.

Business

An Uninterview With Blogworld Keynote Speaker Scott Stratten by Srinivas Rao on BlogcastFM

Scott Stratten from UnMarketing is this year’s keynote speaker for Blogworld and at this time last year nobody knew who he was. If that doesn’t convince you that there’s a ton of value in this interview, he also talks about how and why he used Twitter for a long time before ever starting a blog, how his very first blog post got 10,000 Readers, and so much more!

So You Want to Write a Website. Where Do You Begin? by Susan Greene of Susan Greene Copywriter

So you’ve decided you want to write a website. Now what? How do you make the leap from an idea in your head to an impressive online marketing presentation, one that will attract visitors to your website and convert them into customers? It’s not as hard as you think. Here’s how to get started…

What Luck! by Tyler Tervooren of Advanced Riskology

Luck exists! Luck doesn’t exist! The argument is as hot as ever, but the truth is that it doesn’t matter. Luck does exist, but as soon as you rely on it, you’ve lost the game.

I Must Do the Thing I Think I Cannot Do by Jaime Tardy of Eventual Millionaire

In life, we are made up of our actions. The actions you choose make up the experiences you have. When you think back over your life, the ideas you have, the thoughts you have had, are all based on the actions you have taken (or not taken) during your life. So if we keep just taking action we can live an amazing life, right?

Self-Improvement

Our Most Important Choice by Tim Sanchez of Deliver Bliss

We make a million choices every day. The most important one is sometimes the hardest, but with the right attitude, we can do amazing things.

Do good, and do it now by Akhila Kolisetty of Justice for All

While many people have told me, “Make money now, and do good later,” I argue that we can do good NOW. Working in the non-profit field can allow you to make an impact now, without foregoing a comfortable living situation, stable salary, and opportunities to become well known and successful.

I Will Go To Space One Day by Austin Frogge

In a world dominated by short term, nearsighted thinking it is time for a more worldly, connected view. People need to see the earth for what it is – an interconnected, dependent, fragile biome in which we share with our brothers and sisters as well as so many other species in which we influence.

Remember, if you have a link that you want back links for, simply fill out the form here: http://bit.ly/dDigsh. Spread the word if you find this resource useful to your blog building! We look forward to reading the amazing content this community puts out!