Business

How I Left My Job And Started To Live A Life Of Adventure And Travel (and you can too!) + Location Rebel Review

It’s incredible how much my life changed over the last few years. Exactly two years ago I was crawling through the mud, enduring my basic military training as a new recruit. Austria is one of the last Western countries that still has compulsory military service. I was having 16 hour days and frequent night-shifts.

In the army

Today I’m sitting in a nipa hut, right next to a huge pool and surrounded by palm trees. I’m hanging out at our villa in Bali, Indonesia. The beach is only 5 minutes away and the weather is warm (but not too hot).

Over the last 6 months, I’ve been traveling (or living in) Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, Czech Republic and Austria. I’ve been on the road for 1.5 years. I genuinely believe that I had more fun within those 1.5 years than the average person in his or her life-time.

Boracay, Philippines

Prague, Czech Republic

How did I get here? I identified the 3 reasons that are responsible for my success.

1. I had balls

One snowy day in February 2010 I pushed through my comfort zone and bought a one-way ticket to Bangkok, Thailand.

At that point, I’ve never been outside of Austria for more than 2 weeks. I’ve never travelled alone. I didn’t have a business. I didn’t buy a return ticket.

The closer I got to departure day, the more uncertainty I felt. My relatives and friends started to freak out. I freaked out. I did it anyway.

(Note: I had a couple thousand Euros in the bank. If you are broke, build a business first and then travel.)

2. I had real skills

Two months into my trip I got a gig. What started as working 2-3 hours a day for food, beer and accommodation at a resort turned into a full-on contracting gig.

My IT/software development background was a huge asset. Having a couple of websites up and running and possessing SEO and social media marketing knowledge was helpful too.

If it weren’t for my skills, I would have gone home after 6 months once my money ran out (like EVERY other backpacker I know).

There are tons of online marketers who want you to buy their “proven system” that is simple enough that even idiots can make money by only pushing a button. These systems don’t work. Having real, marketable skills will be your key to success.

3. I surrounded myself with other successful entrepreneurs

The amount of advice, inspiration and help that I’ve received from my entrepreneurial friends is incredible.

There’s a saying that you’re the average of your 5 best friends. It is true. Hanging out with other successful businessmen was a game-changer. My thoughts, behavior and attitude changed entirely.

All 4 of my current roommates are successful online entrepreneurs. One of them is Sean Ogle. Sean does SEO consulting, has some very profitable photography niche-sites and is a popular blogger. His transition was similar to mine. He quit his job, learned skills that other people were willing to pay for and surrounded himself with mentors and other entrepreneurs.

Sean spent the better part of the last couple of months working on his product, Location Rebel. Location Rebel’s premise is to be a framework that teaches you everything you need to work from anywhere and quit your job.

Location Rebel Review

Over the last few days I spent a lot of time getting to know Sean Ogle (we just met 4 days ago here in Bali). He gave me access to Location Rebel. To be honest, I was blown away.

While I expected a high quality product from Sean, this is a lot better than expected.

The reason that Location Rebel is so good is that it covers all three factors that were responsible for my success.

1. Overcoming Fear

A section of the course is devoted to overcoming your fear. Furthermore, you’ll find support from group of like-minded people in the forums that are going through the same things that you are.

2. Learning Real Skills

A huge part of Location Rebel are 8 case studies of successful location independent entrepreneurs. Their professions range from Copywriting to SEO and web development.

Each case study teaches you how to learn the skills, how to find clients and portrays the lifestyle of someone who makes money using these skills.

3. Surrounding yourself with other entrepreneurs

Location Rebel includes guides on networking, finding mentors and a forum. Having a place to hang out with people going through similar lifestyle changes is priceless.

I’m active in the forums myself.

One of my favorite things about Location Rebel is its interactivity. After reading (or watching/listening to) a piece of content, you’ll have to fill out a questionnaire.
This forces you to think and reflect instead of just mindlessly consuming the information thus improves the learning experience.

Bottom line

The whole course is very well written includes tons of audio and video, and is full of great content.

In my opinion, Location Rebel is NOT for you if you

  • Already have a very marketable skill (e.g. being able to program iPhone apps) and know how to get clients.
  • Already quit your job and are self-employed.

Location Rebel is for you if you if you

  • Want to be an entrepreneur but don’t know where to start.
  • Want to quit your job.
  • Want to travel the world while making money from your laptop.

The bottom line is that Location Rebel is the product that I wish I had when I first got started on my journey. You will learn the right mindset and the right skills to quit your job and improve your life – whether you want to live in Thailand or work from home to spend more time with your family.

Location Rebel will launch Tuesday morning. Be sure to head over to the Location Rebel website to check out some free videos and PDFs in the mean time.

This post contains affiliate links. I thoroughly believe in Location Rebel, that’s why I reviewed it here. It’s one of the few products out there that I fell comfortable promoting.

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What Apollo 13 Can Teach You About Success

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“Houston, we’ve had a problem.” – Jim Lovell, April 14, 1970

The crew of Apollo 13, bound for the moon, indeed had a problem. An oxygen tank exploded, causing massive damage to the spacecraft’s electrical system.

Read more…

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How To Come Up With Business Ideas: 3 Ways To Get Started

how to come up with ideas

“Imagination is more important than knowledge” – Albert Einstein

I wouldn’t describe myself as a completely uncreative person, but one thing that I always struggled with is coming up with ideas. Especially when it comes to naming things or coming up with business ideas. Actually, I didn’t even come up with this domain name myself (thanks Sean).

A few weeks ago I decided that it is time to get over this sticking point. So I picked up a book called The Idea Book. The book opened my eyes. I would recommend it to anyone having trouble coming up with ideas.

Here are 3 ways to come up with more (and better) ideas:

1. Write everything down

That’s the thing that helped me the most. I sometimes had good ideas, but never wrote them down and forgot them immediately.

“It is not a bad idea to get in the habit of writing down one’s thoughts. It saves one having to bother anyone else with them.” – Isabel Colgate

Seriously, write all your thoughts and ideas down. Even if you think the idea is bad, write it down. You might be able to develop your bad ideas into great ideas when you go back to them. Or maybe you can combine them with another bad idea into a great one.
Thomas Edison, the greatest inventor of all time, wrote every idea down as soon as he had it. After Edison’s death, 3500 notebooks full of ideas were found in his home.

2. Force yourself to come up with lots of ideas

The best way to come up with a good idea is to have many bad ones.

“If you want to increase your success rate, double your failure rate.” – Thomas J. Watson, Founder of IBM

Sit down and force yourself to come up with 30 ideas. Yes, the 1st one will be bad. Actually, 90% will be bad. But there is a good chance that some of your ideas will be good. If you found a good idea, try to come up with a few more ideas. Maybe you find an even better one.

3. Where do you come up with ideas?

Chances are, you don’t come up with your best ideas in office meetings.

“No one has ever had an idea in a dress suit.” – Sir Frederick Banting

Find out where you come up with ideas. I get ideas in the shower or sitting at the beach with a notebook and a pen. Other people get ideas while walking or running. Do more of that. I’m going to take a shower after I finish this post, to think about a project.

What about you?

I’m still no expert in coming up with ideas. What about you? Is it easy for you to come up with ideas? How do you come up with ideas? Are there any good books on this subject? Any tips?

Featured pic by brunkfordbraun

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Transform Your Knowledge Into A Business Action Plan – With The James Bond of Business Intelligence: David Crandall

Post image for Transform Your Knowledge Into A Business Action Plan – With The James Bond of Business Intelligence: David Crandall

If you’ve been reading a lot about starting a business and marketing (like everyone in this niche) but are not really sure on how to pull everything together, David Crandall is somebody you should be listening to. David is a Business Intelligence specialist that helps both Fortune 500 companies and small business owners in improving their business.

I’ve known David for a few months now. Some of the most important people in this niche call him a baller. Whenever he is mentioned on a popular Podcast, his name is followed by a “ka-ching” sound effect.

David just released his product EXTRACT | TRANSFORM | LOAD: The Power of YOU. Check it out here.

Links on this page are affiliate links (this means I get a commission, but it doesn’t cost you anything). If you decide to buy, it’s greatly appreciated.

What follows is an interview with David Crandall on how you can utilize Business Intelligence for your business.

David Berger: Hello David. Can you tell us who you are and what you are about?

David Crandall: My name is David Crandall and I’ve worked in the field of Business Intelligence for the better part of the past decade. My clients are typically large corporations (some of which are Fortune 500 companies) which hire me to help them analyze and make sense of their large volumes of data. I’ve saved many of these companies MILLIONS of dollars on a yearly basis and create systems that enable them to make better business decisions.

While I still work in that industry, I’m currently turning my attention to the entrepreneur and small business owner community to help them make the same types of intelligent decisions.

David Berger: What’s Business Intelligence? Does it have to do with James Bond and the MI6?

David Crandall: Business Intelligence is the analysis of data to help you make better decisions. For large corporations, this often involves aggregating millions of rows of data to find trends and outliers.

Regarding Mi6, I am unable to disclose the full nature of my relationship with them at this point in time.

David Berger: What can Business Intelligence do for the average entrepreneur or online business guy?

David Crandall: The average entrepreneur is often a jack of all trades and carries the weight of the business on his shoulders. Factoring in the concept that they would need to be an expert in every area of their business (as well as unaffected by stress) in order to make the best decisions possible, it becomes clear why creating automated processes can be a huge benefit. Many people online use tools like Google Analytics to track numbers that relate to their business.

Business Intelligence takes it a step farther and helps to draw conclusions based on things more than just traffic count.

Gut instinct still has its place with the average entrepreneur, but should be reserved for when quick decisions are necessary. How much better is it to be able to plan ahead and base decisions on quantifiable factors!

For example, if you were to split test a sales page with two different headers and compare the results, it gives you the opportunity to try multiple options to see which one is best. Without the testing, you’d be left to try and figure out whether or not a decision had merit or if you had merely gotten lucky.

David Berger: What’s the #1 mistake that online entrepreneurs make that could be prevented by proper Business Intelligence?

David Crandall: The number one mistake that I see online entrepreneurs make is information gluttony. With so much information so readily available, many people just sit in front of their computer like it is a buffet and consume information all day long while never actually putting any of it to use.

The problem is that a lot of that information is conflicting because the writers have not done any kind of analysis on their results but often just write from the perspective of “I was doing this when I became successful, therefore it must have been a factor of my success”. (No one ever credits luck in those situations, btw!)

The biggest problem with information gluttony is that people become paralyzed and can’t decide where to actually start. They know A LOT but have not experienced the information first hand. Therefore, a lot of people become walking encyclopedias on business and marketing, but never make a dime online.

I’ve talked with a lot of people from varied backgrounds and locations since sticking my head into the online entrepreneur community. I was surprised to discover that even the people who have yet to make a single cent online often know way more about business than the average person offline. However, since there has never been a time when they put that knowledge to the test, they are only able to recite it but have little to no confidence in their own abilities.

David Berger: You just launched your product, EXTRACT | TRANSFORM | LOAD. Can you tell us more about it?

David Crandall: EXTRACT | TRANSFORM | LOAD is the name of the product which I’ve taken directly from a common term used in Business Intelligence. Put simply, it is the process of extracting data from one location, transforming it into something useful, and loading it back into the same or a different system for use.

The product’s aim is to perform that same procedure, but instead of extracting the data from a computer database, the data comes form the user’s mind. The goal is to help them wade through the mountains of data in their mind and find the pieces that are most useful to them and their ideal business.

David Berger: That sounds great. What’s the main difference between your product and all the other products out there that try to jumpstart a person’s online business endeavors?

David Crandall: Unlike almost every other course in the information and entrepreneurial markets, this course is not based on a downloadable file. There is no PDF ebook and no audio or video files. The entire course is done online through a question and answer system that stores the users information and then transforms it into a meaningful format for them to then act upon.

The focus is on what the user knows as opposed to being a textbook of what I know. The teaching is done through questions and then presenting the responses back to the user.

David Berger: Who would profit most from EXTRACT | TRANSFORM | LOAD?

David Crandall: This is for the entrepreneur who has decided to do business online. While it could be used for people doing offline business, I think online savvy people will have more knowledge to pull from.

I would also say that this is for the person who knows a lot but is stuck in a dip regarding their business. They’ve researched until they are blue in the face but just can’t figure out where to go to move forward.

David Berger: Is there anybody who would not profit from purchasing your course?

David Crandall: I’d love to say everyone and then have a massive rush to sign up, but honestly this is NOT for everyone.

I would say that people who are looking to consume information (like other ebooks and courses) need not apply. The goal is not to transfer loads of information from my brain to theirs but rather for them to understand what they already know.

I’d also say that this is not for people who are unwilling to act on what they’ve learned. At each point along the way of the course, there are action steps that are necessary to take to see results.

Somebody who doesn’t want to take action should not sign up.

David Berger: What are the main benefits for somebody who will purchase your course and go through it?

David Crandall: I often tell people “You know stuff other people want to know”. Strangely enough, I think we often want to know things only to find out that we already did…they were just buried under a mountain of useless facts.

The goal of this course is to help people move those useless facts out of the way so that when they are done, where a bunch of disconnected information had previously been, they will see a very clear and concise business action plan 100% customized to them and their ideal business.

David Berger: Thanks for the interview.

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(Again, I have a special bonus for anybody who buys from my affiliate link: You get a report called “Cold Beer, Fast Internet & No Snow: How To Live Like A King In The Philippines” as a gift*.)

EXTRACT | TRANSFORM | LOAD is a four week long course that helps you discover & transform your knowledge (you know way more than you think) into a concise business action plan. It comes with a 30 day, rock-solid, no questions asked, money back guarantee.

Update: Registration for the course is closed now.

Image by johanoomen

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