As of today, I will no longer continue the CouchSurfingCEO brand.

In July of 2011, I had ventured out in the world to search for meaning. And it’s been an eye opening experience.

In that time, a few things became apparent that I did not, nor could not have foreseen. So I have decided to kill the “personal brand” for the following reasons:

1. Legacy

The spectrum of leaving a legacy in the 21st Century is complicated.

I once heard Google’s Eric Schmidt mention that there is more content created in two days, than the sum of all content created from the dawn of man up to the year 2002. So needless to say, there is a lot of noise out there. And remarkable contributions to society can easily be lost in the mix.

In the days of early humans, content was the drawings on the walls of the cave. As papyrus took hold in Egypt, that content was transfered to sheets. With the advent of the printing press, content became duplicatable. And with the rise of the social web, content has taken on many forms.

From the time of hieroglyphs & pottery art to today’s videos, posts, & status updates, content creation is evolving.

Ok, back to the legacy spectrum. On one end of the spectrum we have accessibility. If no one knows you exist, your contributions are meaningless. Think of a monk in a monastery high in the mountains. This man may have the answers to all of life’s problems. Yet, he has no means to spread this message beyond the temple walls.

The interconnectivity of the web solves the problems of accessibility. Hitting send on an iPhone can make any message instantly accessible to anyone else in the world with an Internet connection.

But this ease of accessibility is overshadowed by the fact a billion or more people are able to hit send on a daily basis.

Which leads to the other end of the legacy spectrum. Permanence.

Do a search on Twitter for any term you’re interested in and watch how the tweets build up. Or go to Google and search for that same term, take a screen shot of the results, and return two months later. The page will most likely be radically different.

Blogs, social media, and the multitude of rising abilities to create and share stuff has shattered the permanence of content.

In history, an etching in stone was permanent. A sacred papyrus guarded in a temple was permanent. A book held in an institution was permanent. But none of these were accessible.

Accessibility in the 21st Century requires content to be delivered instantaneous. Or it will suffer from content competition.

Permanence in the 21st Century requires content to be created remarkably, demanding it to be shared, reviewed, and saved. Or it too will suffer from content competition.

Therefore, the catch-22 of leaving a legacy comes from developing a strategy that is both accessible and permanent.

But when done correctly:

What we do today, will carry on for a lifetime.

Which leads me to the second point:

2. Impression

I have nothing against couchsurfing. I can’t count how many times I’ve crashed on a vague acquaintance’s couch. And I don’t plan to stop.

However, as my company New Methods expands and I continue to grow my network, I don’t want to send people to a body of work that isn’t my name, Bradley Gauthier. A “personal brand” is only effective if that name is all you want to be known for. Which is fine for many people. But personally, I have high aspirations for my legacy and CouchSurfingCEO isn’t one of them.

Also in a year or so, had I continued the CouchSurfingCEO blog, it would most likely have a substantial amount of quality articles and a growing audience. But outside of that audience, my entire societal contribution would be based on quick assumptions.

It’s been six months since I started the Twitter handle and blog and in that time I have met many influential people. None of which understood or embraced the “brand” openly. Only other digital nomads and others interested in lifestyle design, understood it. And while you may be thinking, who cares what others think. In some circles, you do. When dealing with high-powered entrepreneurs, investors, and leaders, the secret is this:

You only have a split second to make a positive impression.

It sucks, but it’s reality. But anyway, onto the third point:

3. Higher-Order

In 2008 when I quit my job in search of a better life, I had no idea where the road was going to take me. But for the past few years, the road I thought I wanted to travel down was that of a digital vagabond. Of a person who created enough passive income to finance fun and exciting adventures without any rhyme or reason.

And so, in the summer of 2011 I had recently partnered with Greg Hartle to build a company that would provide digital training to anyone with an Internet connection. This would allow for a digital nomad lifestyle without any 9-5 desk work. I thought that I would want to make enough money to provide a healthy living and that’s it, no bigger motives other than helping a few people learn some skills while I travel.

But then something remarkable happened a couple months ago. On one of Greg and I’s weekly strategy calls, we started talking about the economy and how there is a growing gap in those people who magically “get it” and the majority of those, who don’t. While the topic of the conversation was nothing new. (It’s the very reason we founded New Methods in the first place) The remarkable thing was, we found a sense of clarity. That we have an extraordinary opportunity to change the lives of potentially billions of people. Society en masse could benefit for what we are building over this coming decade.

At that moment, nothing else mattered. I had connected the dots. I was on this planet for a reason and I have a miraculous opportunity to help create a meaningfully better society.

While I know this is a lofty goal, the subsequent conversations with Greg and other’s in my network have continuously reinforced my eureka moment. I have a higher-order. And it’s to help you, your family, your neighbors, our society, and our future generations.

The point is this: in a time of high unemployment, record foreclosures, a student loan epidemic, money in politics, growing income gaps, climate change, and the rest of the near endless list of problems in the world, I am making it my life’s work to do anything and everything I can to help.

And the best way to do the above is by focusing all of my effort on building New Methods into the best “for-benefit” business it possibly can be. To contribute meaningful content to the world with accessibility and permanence in mind. And to become an example of what possibilities there are in life, given the right kind of motivation and perseverance.

I, Bradley Gauthier, am here to serve you.

It’s a warm autumn evening in 2008. I’m 22 years old. And I just quit my great job at a Fortune 500 company.

My hands are shaking as I struggle to find my mass transit card amongst a bag of papers and desk momentos.

The line of commuters behind me clearly display their displeasure as I’ve taken a few extra seconds to search for the card in my bag.

I’m at the Quincy station of Chicago’s iconic “L” subway system, surrounded by hundreds of people in suits and business casual garb.

By the time I find the card, swipe it, and go through the turn-style, the line has diverted to the other gates. And rightfully so, had it been the day before, I would have been in a rush too.

But not today.

Today I don’t care about rushing. I don’t mind if it takes 5 seconds longer to find my card. There are no signs of any trains coming, so no one is missing anything.

Standing on the platform, I watch them anxiously stare down the tracks for the next train to arrive, as if their focus on the empty third-rail will make the train come quicker.

A few minutes later, the “L” arrives, and the commuters pile into the train-car.

And with no seats available, I struggle to hold onto a handle.

Packed in the car like sardines in a can – and smelling as such – we continue on.

Finally, I take a moment to think back on how I got here:

The Evolution of Becoming an Employee

Having started my first business at the age of 12, I’ve always aspired to become a successful entrepreneur.

But while attending high school and college, the business could never find my full attention. School, friends, sports, and the 5,000 other things that students have going on made it extremely difficult to keep my web design business running full time.

So on occasion, I had also worked part-time jobs while going through school. Which were all fun for a kid like me:

I emulated the shenanigans of Caddyshack at a golf course. I talked computers for 8 hours a day at Best Buy. And I bartended at an upper-class supper club, tuxedo and all… Ask me to make you an Old Fashioned… Best. Drink. Ever.

These were all fun jobs. I gained experience. I earned beer money. But they didn’t mean anything. The jobs were just part-time gigs.

By the time I graduated college though, I had accepted the plight of a full-time corporate job. At least for a few years. Everyone told me a salaried job with good benefits and a 401k at a corporation is the next logical step in post-college life. After all, it is what everyone else is doing!

But the money and freedom I earned from my business during my younger years told me that I mustn’t make this a long-term career path.

And so, eighteen months after graduating college with $70,000 in student loan debt, here I was:

Voluntarily jobless…

Oh shit.

I liked my job. I liked my bosses. I liked most of my coworkers. I liked the money. I liked playing Wii Tennis on the conference room projector. I liked the continuous trainings. I liked the view of the Chicago River from the skyscraper. I liked it all….

But there was no turning back.

What have I done? Why would I give up that security?

Exploring the Employee Mindset

(let’s quickly fast forward to today)

Lately, when I talk with people who are employed for others, the conversation is much different than they are accustomed to thinking about. Because I don’t approach them from the perspective of another employee learning about what they do professionally. But rather, I approach the conversation as a person generally interested by the underlying decisions of their lifestyle choice.

At this point in my life, I generally don’t get why people choose to be employees. I’m rarely empathetic to that lifestyle. So I am always curious about what decisions have led them to their current mindset. And wondering why they choose to forgo their passions for a paycheck.

But over time, I have noticed there are three stages of employee job satisfaction:

Loving a Job

I’ve met a few people over the years who love their job and would never consider doing something different.

While I’ve never understood how someone could love working for someone else, making other people rich, and having to ask permission to do things. I can somewhat see the logic in following a passion while working for someone else.

A full-time writer & photographer for the National Geographic comes to mind as someone who probably loves their job.

Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.
~ Confucious

An extremely talented sales trainer once recited this quote when I asked them why they still worked for their company. And I think about that conversation often. As his thought-process was the first time having a job made sense to me.

Hating a Job

On the other end of the job enjoyment spectrum, is hating a job. This should be obvious for everyone. Hating a job is understandable:

A bad boss, horrible working conditions, annoying coworkers, low pay, boring tasks… the list is endless of why people hate their job.

Hating a job makes it easy for us to call it quits. You often hear of people who get disturbed with their life and make a drastic change. Because change needs to happen.

If you hate something with enough passion, you can find a way to overcome it.

Enduring a Job

I didn’t love my job. But I didn’t hate it either.

Rather, I was ok with it.

And in reality, this is where most people find themselves. They are content with their current job. It pays the bills, it allows for a couple martinis on Fridays, and it offers a decent vacation a couple times a year.

But being content should scare the shit out of anyone.

Because once you find yourself accepting your surroundings, it becomes nearly impossible to change.

“It’s not ideal, but it’s fine,” people say. Subconsciously knowing they are lying to themselves.

In turn, people who are content with the way things are, continue to suffer. Because it’s comfortable and there is no pressing need to change.

Ergo, they unfortunately settle for shitty lives, because it’s comfortable.

Escaping the Confort Zone

(ok, back to the story)

Here I am, standing on the “L” realizing what I just did.

They say ignorance is bliss. And it’s true. Because up until this point, I had only a wild-idea for an Internet company. No real rhyme or reason for leaving my job other than I had amassed the necessary training, capital, and skill-set to start my new business.

I had yet to fully think through the entire scenario:

No more guaranteed income means no more guaranteed life.

Shoulder to shoulder with a dozen strangers, I find myself in an intense fight or flight moment.

What if this new business doesn’t work out? What am I going to do about bills? Where am I going to live? How do I feed myself? What do I do now?

It was fucking scary…

But in those brief, tense moments I fought the urges to crawl back to my job.

Instead, I explored my life’s goals, examined my current lifestyle, and determined why quitting was a good thing:

Because I was confortable with my life.

I was comfortable with the view of the river. I was comfortable with my coworkers. I was comfortable with this shitty commute. I was comfortable with my job.

But I didn’t love any of it. I know my life is destined for more.

So I took a deep breath, smiled, and enjoyed the rest of the “L” ride.

There is no passion to be found playing small – in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.
~ Nelson Mandela

And now, looking back at that day, quitting my job has made all the difference in my life.

The Uncomfortable Challenge

Writing this post was extremely uncomfortable for me. So I hope you take my experience as a wake up call for change.

I challenge you to take a look at your life from an outside perspective and ask yourself:

Am I truly happy? Do I love what I do?

Or am I comfortable?

But please don’t keep quiet about what you discover. Tell people. Use the comment form below. Facebook your goals with your friends. Tweet your desires to your followers. Email your confidants. Share your desires at dinner with the family.

Do anything that helps you realize how comfortable you are with something in your life. And set out to change it.

Take action. It starts today. It starts now…

The greatest mentor in my life, whom I had never met, died yesterday. And it deeply saddens me.

Steve Jobs, creator of the Apple II, Macintosh, Pixar, iPod, iTunes, iPhone, iPad and countless other innovations, touched millions of lives. Including mine.

I have always admired Mr. Jobs. His mentality towards creating products has been the guiding light for nearly all of my business decisions. I owe him dearly.

But this post isn’t to mourn him.

Steve wouldn’t want that. He is famously known for wanting us to not miss a beat. That we must continue striving to change the world. My consulting and speaking career has been based around Steve’s innovative mindset. In fact, just yesterday, I published a post about the evolution of technology. And no one more than Steve understood this.

We must embrace change.

And Steve Changed My Life…

About 3 years ago I had watched a remarkable speech on YouTube given by Steve Jobs in 2005. And it changed my life forever. If you haven’t seen it, please watch this:

Throughout the speech, Steve makes the point to trust that you know where you are going. That only after you’re there, can you then connect the dots.

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”
~ Steve Jobs

My life has certainly seen its fair share of ups and downs thus far. But I hope my failures are out-shadowed by my successes.

However, up until I watched this video, I had never given full consideration into what got me to where I am. And to where I was going.

I had not yet considered the dots, let alone connect them.

At that time, I had just left my well-paying job in a Fortune 200 company to re-enter the world of entrepreneurship. I had looming student loan debt. And I was completely over my head.

At that time, my life was still a scattered graph of random dots. I had no real significant contribution to the world. But Steve assured me that the dots will eventually connect.

I trust Mr. Jobs, so I trusted my path.

Connecting the Dots

Fast forward three years. I have an online marketing firm and a growing consulting/speaking career, as well as launching an Internet startup. Life is good.

And the dots finally make sense:

Had I not been a curious, shy little kid on a tiny indian reservation full of bullies and fights… I would not have avoided the troublemakers by self-teaching myself how to build computers and websites.

Had I not been infatuated with modifying my car in high school, spending countless hours and thousands of dollars… I would not appreciate the subtleties of finding art in everything around us.

Had I not worked as my Dad’s little helper growing up, suffering through what, at that time, seemed like overly strenuous child labor… I would not understand what hard work truly is.

Had I not become bored with college, skipping classes, losing interest, and barely graduating… I would not have immersed myself into hundreds of books of my own accord.

Had I not taken the corporate job in Chicago, developing a severe case of work-place depression… I would not appreciate the true benefits of being my own boss.

Had I not destroyed my financial statement with student loan debt, nearly impossible to pay when starting a business… I would not appreciate the value of a dollar.

Had I not tirelessly worked with hundreds of businesses through my marketing firm… I would not deeply understand business in the broad perspective that I do at age 25 nor be capable of launching my new startup.

Had I not have you in my life… I would not be where I am today.

So I thank you, the reader. I thank my parents, my family, my friends. I thank all those who have changed my life for the better.

And of course, I thank you, Steve. Thank you for helping me connect the dots.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

This is oftentimes the response I receive when I tell people about my new project.

My project, it seems, is unusual for most. But why?

Having given away most of my worldly possessions, moving from my four-bedroom house, and exploring the world did seem daunting to me. Even a little overwhelming.

But never as a crisis.

I’m 25-years-old with little ties to anything. So I ask, why not? This is not a mid-life crisis.

However, it appears that society has lost their capacity to see another’s worldview – their empathy is non-existent. And worse yet, they’ve lost their ability to believe there is more to life.

To me, the real crisis is wanting to sit in a fucking cubicle all day making someone else rich, needing advanced permission to take a day vacation, all while hoping that in 40 or 50 years there will be enough zeroes in the bank statement to travel the world.

Why wait?

Why not live a remarkable life now?

It’s possible. And this blog will be a real-world case study of my adventures as I travel, experiment, and search for the ideal lifestyle.

I hope you will join me.

We’ve heard ‘em all before. The timeless antidotes supposedly said to motivate those who have lost focus. To jumpstart those who are fading into normalcy. And ultimately, to provoke inner growth and personal change.

But are these statements enough? Do they serve justice for the ideology behind the light-hearted quips?

No. Not in the least.

Why?

Because words are only words. They are mere allusions to a greater philosophy impossible to articulate.

In turn, we hear these thinly motivating structures of thoughts, ponder them deeply yet rarely take action.

Words – no matter how powerful – seldom motivates action. We are simply animals. We evolved from tribes. And we follow whom we revere.

But we don’t follow other’s words. Instead, we follow their actions, their motives and their mentality.

Unfortunately, with that said, the 1^st world society has collectively conditioned themselves into believing the fallacies and preconceived notions of a normal lifestyle, with materialism ever increasingly in tow.

And with this typical lifestyle of bigger is better, more equals meaning, and shiny toys reflect wealth, we’ve lost focus on what truly matters in life.

“People say that what we are all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think this is what we’re really seeking. I think what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive.”
~ Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

Introducing the CouchSurfingCEO

As of today, I am publicly launching a new persona. A travel persona, to be exact. Cheekily named after my new vagabond lifestyle.

The travel blog is going to serve as an outlet for cool lessons learned on the road (travel hacks), recounts of my adventures, and documenting my ever increasingly experimental lifestyle.

But as I mentioned above, a blog is useless if it is mere philosophy. Of things I could do, instead of things I am doing. And the CouchSurfingCEO will be a real-world case study into the search for a meaningful life.

So hopefully my actions speak louder than words, and that my posts of real-life lessons and stories evoke you into pursuing a life worth living.

I hope you will join me on my new blog as we together search for the ideal lifestyle.

The End of this Blog

With the launch of CouchSurfingCEO and the upcoming launch of New Methods, this blog will see no new posts. It’s sad to see it go, but in the grand scheme of things, everything I am working on in my life is greater than this blog.

And these other projects will hopefully be of more value to you.

At almost 100 thoroughly researched articles I hope you enjoyed my writing. Thank you for being a loyal guest to my community.

But remember, I’m not going anywhere!

I truly hope you will join me over at CouchSurfingCEO

Sixty-eight thousand four hundred seventy-two.

Awfully large number… I’ll see if numerically helps:

68,472

Nope. Still large.

68,472… 68,472… 68,472…

Shoot, it doesn’t get smaller after repeating. Ugh!

So what is this number? It’s not my favorite number, that’s for sure. Actually, this number is the amount of student loan debt I accrued over my three years in college. 3 years = $68,472 … whoah! That’s roughly $62 a day, every day for three solid years.

The Debt Snowball

Before getting into it, let’s first travel back to my 18th year of life. I have a thriving business (I started when I was 12) implementing technology in residences & offices, as well as designing websites for businesses. I’m maintaining a 3.9 Advanced Honors GPA without any effort. And I have zero debt. Basically, life is good.

Having grown up as a minority from an Indian reservation along with a superior ACT score, I am besieged by college recruiters. From Ivy leagues to west coast universities, I truly have the pick of any school in the nation. But being a nervous teenager leaving my loving home for the first time, I choose the best private college within a half-day’s driving distance. And I love it. New friends, new town, new everything… College life is for me.

Fast-forward to 4 months later. I find myself in a seemingly endless line waiting to sell back my books from a successful first semester… After an absurd couple of hours in line, I’m up! From a wave of seller’s remorse, I keep my Intro to Psych textbook as well as my Econ book out of sheer interest in the subjects. But I decide to ditch the Middle East History book and an overpriced piece of crap that is my Business Computing book. Or so I thought.

Apparently history changes because the college didn’t renew my history book, which means they wouldn’t buy it back. But that’s understandable, there’s a lot going on over there and times are changing.

But the real kick in the pants?

They would not accept the Business Computing book due to a campus wide Microsoft Office upgrade…

Which means I spent the past semester force-fed outdated information.

My Educational Catharsis

Two days later – heartbroken from the realization in the bookstore – I return home for the winter break. There I reconnect with my older brother, Frank, who knowingly or unknowingly changes my life forever. A simple gesture, yet with powerful effects, he gives me an audiobook. And no, not a fictional book about vampires and elves. He gives me How to Win Friends and Influence People. And a complete paradigm shift ensues.

In about 6 hours during a roadtrip to Chicago, I learn more valuable life information from this $20 CD set than I had learned the previous three months of college classes. More importantly, for the first time in my life I actually enjoy a non-fiction book. Partly because of the great content, but mostly because I voluntarily listened to the book.

And that is the key, I want to listen, not required to listen – no professor assigned the book, I’m genuinely interested in the topic.

What follows is a endless quest to find more books I want to read or listen.

I now start listening to books on my three hour drive to and from campus on weekends & holidays. And am learning exponentially more life altering information in a car than in these busy-work college courses. It’s remarkable how in a few short hours, I can learn someone’s complete life’s work on a subject.

And the beauty of these audiobooks is that I can now listen to one or two amazing books a week while attending school.

I wasn’t going to let college get in the way of my learning.

My Biggest Mistake

Unfortunately, being the responsible student, I decide to stick it out and finish my college education. I figured that by having a piece of paper with the college’s name on it, life would improve and I could create the career path of my dreams. Therefore, I shape my class choices in order to fast track the process, receiving a degree in Business with a minor in Psychology and emphasis in Economics, in three years.

But it’s too late, I’ve accrued a mortgage payment equivalent monthly loan amount. Before consolidation I’m looking at $750 a month just to pay interest. I’ve been out of college 4 years and I still have yet to begin paying down the principal.

Don’t get me wrong…

I’m not here to complain about my financial misfortune nor about the astronomically high costs of attending college. I’m here to disclose the perils of entrepreneur education. And the misconception that college is a must.

Imagine if I had the $70k back in my pocket to invest into my business? What would my business I started as a teenager look like today? Instead I dissolved my business based on preconceived notions that college is a requirement for success in business and in life.

Furthermore, what I failed to recognize while taking these business classes, is that traditional schooling breeds you to become a well-trained employee. To fall in-line with the masses. To lead an unremarkable life.

College, at the outset, is positioned as an experience that inspires you to strive for more. But in reality, it creates a workforce of mindless drones, set to take orders from the corporate hierarchy. It does not create the Steve Jobs of the world.

My Advice

Caveat: This only applies to self-starters who do not live by the status quo. To those who have problems with authority, that believe their way is the best way. But also readily look for mentors and others to help them grow as a person. For those who seek out problems to solve and have an unquenchable thirst to continually learn about the world around them. And most importantly, for those who know they were put on this planet to serve the greater good. That their purpose is to help others more than they help themselves.

If the above is you, read on:

You do not need to go to college. We are living in the most wonderful age of humankind. Where information is readily available from a search box in Google or from your home feed on Twitter. You can read books from a Kindle on a beach in Maui, listen to audiobooks on your smartphone while working out, and watch videos on YouTube, TED, or my entrepreneur academy from anywhere in the world with an Internet connection.

Information does not need to be learned through 16 semester hours a week filled with bullshit busy-work taught by professors who are so far removed from reality that they distort your mind into believing you’re a product on a factory line.

You are unique. Never forget this. You have been born into this world to improve it. And you will not do so with a pile of student loan debt sitting in a cubicle taking orders from a thoughtless manager going through a mid-life crisis.

YOU CAN CHANGE THE WORLD

and you don’t need a college diploma to do so…

Alright, enough of me talking, it’s your turn:

Is college worth it for entrepreneurs or anyone else who knows their mission is to improve the lives of others around them?

In two weeks I will be emptying my house, putting all of my possessions in storage, and taking the leap into volunteered homelessness.

It’s a daunting transition. But necessary to start building my dream life.

For those of you familiar with my genius business partner, Greg Hartle and his remarkable Ten Dollars and a Laptop project, you may be having a bit of deja vu. Well fear not, I’m not stepping on his toes nor stealing his thunder. Personally, he is an extreme motivator and mentor towards minimalism.

I am, however, finally setting in motion a plan I created about 4 years ago.

I’ve never played by the rules. I was a disinterested student throughout college. A rebellious employee in the corporate world. And most unconventional, an avid couch-surfer during impromptu adventures.

Life’s Strange, Embrace It

We can never predict what the future has in store for us. Ask me 10 years ago what I’d be doing in 2011 and I would tell you I’m a professional golfer. Six years ago would be an Industrial & Organizational Psychologist. Ask me 3 years ago and I’d say I own a 40 person marketing firm. One year ago, a travelling college professor. Life is strange…

Never would I guess that I’d be sitting on a laptop creating an education company, preparing to revolutionize how we learn.

And most remarkably to me, I’ll be building this project while downsizing my possessions, upping my technology and forcing myself to redefine a normal life.

But what is a normal life?

At first glance, I’m not sure exactly. However, I do know what it isn’t. A normal life is not working 50 years at a 9-5 job. But beyond this, I have yet to discover the answer.

The Metamorphosis

With my bed and couch in storage, I will essentially become a vagabond, traveling the world. Bouncing from available Internet source to available Internet source. I’ll be resting my head on the couches & spare beds of friends and family. And if I’m lucky, the occasional hotel room. Hopefully I don’t find myself on the streets, but even so, everything is a learning experience.

It may be 6 months before I have a place again or 6 years, only time will tell. And this blog (with a cool redesign in the works) will officially transition into a digest of my adventures. Of my insights into what it truly means to be alive. To live a fulfilled life.

As for my business?

It is no longer that of an Internet Marketing firm. While I love helping other businesses improve their marketing, I will be significantly scaling back my client list as I can reach and help more entrepreneurs through New Methods.

As for my viewpoints on business, marketing & entrepreneurial life?

Please join the conversation on my new blog: The Edge of Innovation.

May I have your advice?

Considering I’ve invested everything I have into the New Methods project and am extremely cash-strapped, this leap is a little daunting and nerve-racking. Therefore, I’d love to have your advice and thoughts. I am all ears :)

I was chatting over the phone with one of my clients the other day and something profound happened. I truly realized why I’m on this planet:

I’m here to make YOU happy.

And no, not through flattery or other rah-rah bullshit you see from some of these self-help gurus.

My place is to help you create an extraordinary life. To imagine beyond your wildest dreams, what is achievable in the world. To break you out of your shell and explore the impossible.

From here on out, I am devoting my life to making You happy.

But how can I make someone happy? No person can make someone do anything without coercion. And according to tv crime dramas, that never ends well.

Alright, I should reword my passion:

Helping You Achieve Happiness

First, let’s explore what happiness is, or actually what happiness isn’t. A shit-eating grin is not happiness. Success is not happiness.

In reality, the preconceived notions of happiness are myths.

What happiness truly is cannot be defined in a broad sense of the word. It is up to you to decide what makes you happy.

Maybe it’s finding the person of your dreams…

Maybe it’s an extra thousand dollars a month…

Maybe it’s traveling around the world…

Maybe it’s seeing your child’s loving smile in the morning…

You, and you alone, are the only person who can define what makes you happy.

For far too long, our society has decided our lifestyle – what we do, say and believe. How we work and live. What we eat and where we learn… Enough already!

We have but a few decades on this planet. And you should not spend them unhappy.

Now back to my phone call with my client…

What happened to give me this eureka moment?

As we talked over the phone about my new project, she could hear my passion of helping entrepreneurs create a better life.

But hearing passion? Is that possible? While this is not the first time I’ve heard this about myself. It’s the first time I stopped and thought about it for a while. And I’ve concluded that my passion is helping you find your passion.

You and I

So where do we go from here? How am I going to help you find happiness?

I have set about to make the world a better place. And I’m inviting you to join me.

But I’m not saying you should hop on a plane and fly to my town. Instead, what I’m asking from you is this:

Find what makes you happy. What makes you get out of bed in the morning. More importantly, search deep in your soul to discover how you can make this world a better place. We have so much negativity on this planet and only you can turn the world around you into the positive. We need that glimmer of hope in the horizon.

And you must be that glimpse that will start the evolution of what happiness truly means.

Will you accept this mission?

And with that said, I’ll leave you with this:

The summer of 1998 was life altering. I was entering 7th grade in a small school on the Lac du Flambeau Indian Reservation. And while other kids my age were out being kids, I was doing something drastically different.

At the tender age of 12, I was building a business – a technology-handyman business to be exact.

What I had discovered was that the surrounding area was predominately home for retirement age folks all in need of a little technology help. And I had an unwavering drive to become their solution. So with some initial referral help from my teachers and parents’ friends, I came in to gobble up market-share. Since this was pre-Geek Squad days, business was-a-booming!

Here I was, a middle-school kid garnishing upwards of a couple hundred bucks an hour for things I enjoyed so much I would have done for free…

And the following 6 years would prove to be a huge learning lesson in business, money management, marketing and living an a-typical life.

How I Did It (and How the Concepts Still Apply)

In retrospect, the growth of my business came through natural responses to the needs of that time. I wasn’t a mastermind in business or marketing. I simply applied common teenager-wanting-spending-money logic.

Hand-For-Hire

The first money I earned was from someone needing a simple – at least to me – computer task completed. And they offered to pay me. Eye opening, to say the least. I discovered that I could charge money to do something I already enjoyed doing. And would have normally done it for free.

At that age, I loved tinkering around with electronics. So the money was simply a bonus back then. But this concept has stayed with me ever since; find something you love to do and the money will naturally find its way to you.

Networking

Apparent to me now how necessary this skill is, but another natural step in my business was talking to others. I didn’t realize it at the time but I was a master networker. If I couldn’t find the solution for someone’s problem, I knew someone who did. And this willingness to help other business people out definitely came back tenfold. My phone was ringing off the hook with requests. Mostly from folks I never knew before. All wanted “the whiz kid” to help them out.

Marketing

I quickly found that people needed to contact me. So within the first few weeks of being in business I downloaded a freeware graphic design program and whipped out the above business card. In turn, I had 250 raised ink cards printed. Again, at the time I didn’t realize I was following fundamental business principles. In this case, how the impression high quality marketing collateral makes on someone. I, on the other hand, simply wanted something cool looking.

However, quickly after I started handing these out to teachers and friends, I found that a nice looking business card is a conversation starter. Commonly I would hear something to the effect of “Wow, these are nice! You must really care about your image.”

Another natural progression of my business was using the latest marketing strategies to promote my services. Consequently, I had bought Adobe GoLive and LiveMotion along with an 800 page HTML book… a few weeks later I had a website. And another service in my tool belt. I was now a sought-after website designer.

Nevertheless, after these huge business evolutionary steps, I was still doing everything in response to the needs of the marketplace. I wasn’t reinventing the wheel. But rather answering the local peoples’ needs.

The Teenage Business Owner

After a couple of years I continued slowly working at my business. And while this was the time of the Dot-Com era, where kids were receiving millions in VC money. I obviously wasn’t one of them. (In actuality living on a tiny indian reservation in Northern Wisconsin, I really didn’t know that was going on) But by this time I had become a 14-year-old business owner with adults requesting my services. It felt pretty good.

For example, I had branched out my web business to include products such as reselling of site hosting. And I had clients both locally and in the cities of New York and Chicago. Little did those companies know that the person faxing the monthly invoice was a 14-year-old boy.

All-in-all, I had accidentally created multiple streams of cash flow, built a technology expert image in my community and ultimately ensured that I would never have a “40-hour-work-week” career path. Looking back at my teen years, it was a pretty remarkable turn of events.

The Outcome?

Caveat: I was an immature kid; so don’t hold this against me.

I did what most kids with little financial responsibility would do, I spent most of my earnings on ridiculous things:

• A fully modified car complete with PS2 & XBOX (in the days when most people didn’t have these gaming systems in their homes, my friends and I were playing Grand Theft Auto in the high school parking lot)
• Countless foot-long Abercrombie & Fitch, Express and Banana Republic receipts
• Custom in-home technology that would still make most techies drool
• Top-of-the-line golfing, fishing, biking and other sport gear
• The list continues… but it depresses me, so I’ll stop

However…

I did open an Ameritrade account and invested a portion of the money, buying some extraordinary growth companies (eg. Hanson Naturals – before they created Monster Energy Drink and Registry Magic – before they created WAP security for bluetooth technology), thus launching me into a life of investing. But that will be a future post…

Conclusion

The learning experience of earning all this money and becoming a well-known technology expert as well as building a strong entrepreneurial foundation was invaluable. There is no way that I would be where I am today, if it hadn’t been for this early success in life.

I hope you were able to take something valuable away from my story. Thanks for reading!

Advisors will have suggestions usually directly related to their experiences. Employees who advise you know the business of working for someone. Small business owners understand the freedom of entrepreneurship but their advice comes from a life usually surrounded by too much work and not enough time. And then there are the well-off heirs with little concept of creating cash flows from nothing. They grew up with money and have most likely never been without it for long periods of time.

So whom do you turn to for solid advice?

Mentors. Mentors can talk the talk because they have walked the walk. A good mentor will understand your business aspirations and should have had similar experiences in their business creation history. Moreover, great mentors will have created business systems from scratch and have probably started out with little to no money.

Find mentors and beware advisors.

Sound easy? Well, it isn’t. The world is filled with unqualified advisors. And with a scarce quantity of valued mentors, the chance that you receive constant good advice is rare. Furthermore, as bad advice is constantly at the forefront of your everyday conversations, your subconscious mind will be overloaded to the point of believing the advisors. To combat this onslaught of bad advice, try what I do. Listen to advisors and explore their brain. Ask questions and find out what makes them tick. However, think critically. And always keep in mind that advisors are not coming from your frame of view. Keep your dream and modify it accordingly. Critically analyze the advice received from all sources. To summarize, seek mentors.