You don’t have to be perfect to be good

Posted on June 14, 2010 by Rasheed

Just the other day, a miracle happened to me.

I was working at the restaurant on a Saturday evening, twisting balloons, making people smile, and collecting tips, when I twisted a flower that look just awful. I mean, the five petals were in three different sizes, one of them as big as the other two, I mean it was just terrible.

I showed it to the little girl who had asked for it, waiting for her to complain about the odd sizes of the petals, when she said, “You are the best balloon artist I have ever seen.”

Awww… Isn’t she cute, I thought. I mean how many balloon artists could she have seen? But, I was glad that I didn’t have to start over.

I was about to feel guilty about producing shoddy work and getting paid for it, and start denigrating myself, when a small loving voice from the back of mind reminded me, “Rasheed, you don’t have to be perfect to be good.”

First of all, it was a relief to know that. Secondly, I realized that, yes, I had done a good job from the perspective of the customer, and that is the only perspective that matters.

I know I have been horrible about demanding perfection of myself. Goes back to my childhood days of trying to please my teachers and parents who expected better of me, no matter how good I did. But, I am learning to let go of that. I no longer need to please them. They are not even on the physical plane anymore. The only ones I need to please are my customers, and myself.

I am grateful for the reminder from the Universe that “You don’t have to be perfect to be good.”

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Live and Work from Anywhere

Posted on June 8, 2010 by Rasheed

Today’s post is a very important post.

If you have ever thought about living a Location Independent Lifestyle, where you can live and work from anywhere in the world, then I want to introduce you to someone very important.

Karol Gajda (pronounced Karl Guy-duh) is someone I have come to admire very much in the last year or so. I ran into Karol”s blog Ridiculously Extraordinary sheerly by accident. (you know that there are no accidents in the Universe).     Since then, I have a learned a lot about Karol and his business through his blog.

In the last ten years, Karol has made a lot of money in businesses using the Internet. Everything from E-bay to Affiliate Sales, to Article Marketing and Google Adwords. Karol recently shut down his six-figure annually business because he was no longer active in what he was teaching, and he felt that because of that he wasn’t able to provide the most up to date and cutting edge information to his clients, and that would not be the right thing to do. Money for the sake of making money is not important to Karol.

Today Karol is enjoying the life of his dreams, living a Location Independent Lifestyle, and earning more than enough money to keep him well fed and well traveled. Currently he is living in Wroclaw, Poland. Karol was born in Poland, but his family moved to the USA when he was only a year old.

So why am I telling you about Karol today? I am glad you asked. You see, Karol has been working on creating a comprehensive guide on how to create and live a Location Independent Lifestyle, called How To Live Anywhere: The official  guide to Ridiculously Extraordinary Freedom. I was fortunate enough to review the beta version of the guide a couple of month ago, and provide him feedback along with the members of his Mastermind Team. Karol has taken all the feedback and has created a massive, and in my opinion, more than comprehensive guide that you’ll ever see on the topic, and he is releasing it today.

Whether you buy the guide or not is totally up to you. Whether you use my link to buy it or not is also irrelevant. I will, however, be greatly appreciative, if you did use this link. This way you will be allowing me more free time to devote to this blog and other fun activities.

Oh BTW, I will be paying for my copy of the expanded version of the e-book today at 10:30 AM when it goes on sale. If you do choose to purchase it, make sure to let me know as I am putting together a list of bonuses I would like to send you as my way of saying thank you.

Posted in Lifestyle Design | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Multiple Profit Centers

Posted on June 5, 2010 by Rasheed

I believe the term was coined by the illustrious Barbara Winter, and I have finally come to love the concept and how it applies to my experiments in lifestyle design.

You see, generally speaking, most people in lifestyle design genre talk about creating passive income, or auto-pilot income to support their lifestyle design life.

I wrote about my epiphany on passive income just the other day, and then yesterday, I was awakened to the possibilities of Multiple profit centers. I mean really awakened.

Consider this. You are working at a job that just happens to be a job that you have. How you got there, or whether you love it or hate it is irrelevant. You make a certain amount of money doing that. Consider that to be your profit center #1.

I happen to be Joyfully Jobless, another Barbara Winter term. I twist balloons for profit and fun, and I do that seven days a week (or however many days I want in a given week). I normally work around 35 hours a week, usually less, occasionally more. I make a comfortable living doing that.

But it’s not a living that I want to make, it’s a life that I want to create. A life of Delight and Fun, which I do experience in my work, no doubt about that. But I want more. More in the sense of being able to travel, do some photography, take flying lessons, just goof around, and sleep… a lot.

But working seven days a week gets in the way of doing some of the things, like traveling and taking time off. I do get to sleep plenty, though.

They call me lazy. Guilty as charged.

Who says laziness is a vice? I consider it a virtue. I mean look around in Nature. You don’t don’t see the grass sweat trying to grow. It sweats being lazy, and we call it dew. Contrary to the motivational poster, a gazelle and a lion do not hit the ground running as the sun rises. Gazelles just lazily grazes the grass, and the lions mostly lay around.  Just lay back and chill. When hungry, the lion will stalk the herd, and upon spotting an opportunity, charge. After satisfying the hunger, it will leave the rest of the kill for the scavengers and lay around until hungry again. That’s the way Nature operates.

Ambition is for the losers, if you ask me. Aspiration is the natural tendency, but I digress.

Well, I thought about creating some passive income. You know, the kind where you make money in your sleep? Guess what I found out? Most people making money in their sleep are working like crazy when they’re not sleeping. Not my definition of passive income.

But, what if I have Multiple Profit Centers?

Then I could be working on one of them, or none of them, and all of them would be making profits, allowing me to take time off when I want. Now, there is an idea to get excited about. So I have decided to explore different venues to create multiple profit centers.

I could network with other balloon artists and help them find work for a fee.

I can possibly do the same with face painters and clowns and magicians.

I could write a book about twisting balloons and sell it from this blog and other websites.

I could start teaching classes on Twisting Balloons for Profit and Fun.

I could record those classes, and sell the recordings online, and offline.

Possibilities are endless and I am getting excited about this idea of Multiple Profit Centers.

Stay tuned as I make progress with this concept and I’ll share my findings with you.

One of the things I have found is that my friend Karol Gajda is releasing an e-book titled How to live anywhere on Tue, June 8th that teaches us what he has learned over the last 10+ years about just that. I had the privilege of reading the beta version, and it is awesome. Click here to visit Karol Gajda.

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What is Original?

Posted on June 4, 2010 by Rasheed

I always want to post original content. But I always struggle with the thought of creating original content.

I would come up with a thought or an idea for a post. Then, when I start writing it – or more accurately - when I fire up the laptop to write it, I would see a post displayed in my reader that would distract me, and before I know I have read a few blog posts. I am okay with that.

The problem is, that more often than not, I would read something along the same lines that I was going to post about, and suddenly I don’t feel so original.

So, what is one to do?

Any ideas, opinions and suggestions would be highly appreciated.

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Happiness is an Inside Job

Posted on June 2, 2010 by Rasheed

So I spoke at the Toastmasters meeting this morning on the subject of happiness, and to say that I was happy with the outcome is more than just playing with words.

I was delighted, because, I hadn’t done any “public speaking” in quiet a while and I was able to hold the audience’s attention with an abstract woo woo concept such as Happiness.

But more importantly, I was pleased with my presentation because I felt that I had moved up a notch in my skills. I was able to incorporate humor into my speech, which I had always struggled with in the past, and my evaluator highlighted the use of humor as one of the “good” aspects of my speech.

He mentioned that I could do a better job of structuring my speech. He said that I had a good beginning and a good ending, but there was too much meat and potatoes in the middle. The speech I delivered this morning was more or less an impromptu speech. I say more or less, because, while I had written out the opening, and thought about how I would close it, I filled in the gap in between as I went along. So, it was a great lesson for me to learn. Next time, I’ll be better prepared.

The evaluator said, that the best part was, how relaxed and confident I was, and he particularly liked the conversational tone of my speech. I know, that I was effectively able to use the humor because I was relaxed. So, overall, it was a very satisfying experience. I am glad I volunteered for the occasion.

I mentioned in yesterday’s post that it was my intention to record the speech. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to do that. However, I made myself a promise that from here on, I will record everyone of my speeches. I have two reasons for doing this, actually three.

First and foremost, I want to see myself speaking from the audience’s perspective, so I can critique evaluate my own performance.

Second, my mentor and hero, World Champion of Public Speaking, Darren Lacroix has always emphasized this point, every time I have seen him make a presentation on how to be a better speaker.

And last, but certainly not the least, I want to use these speeches as promo material and/or products for sale or give away.

What?

Oh, you want to know the content of my speech?

Duh… How silly of me to forget.

Well, in a nut shell, I told them that they can be happy if they did one thing. And that one thing is to decide that they are going to be happy.

Most people, when deciding to be happy fall prey to the faulty thinking of…

If … then.

  • If I had a million dollars (or whatever amount), then I’ll be happy
  • If I could get that dream job, then I’ll be happy
  • If I could marry the Prince Charming or Cinderella, then I’ll be happy

I suggested that they make happiness the touchstone, the criterion of their decision making process. The process that determines what actions they will take and what actions they will avoid in life.

When faced with a tough decision, ask yourself the question, “Will this make me happy?”

If you can answer it yes, then by all means go ahead. But, if you find yourself hesitating, then it is time to masticate the issue. (BTW, Masticate was the word of the day, which means to chew something into a pulp – in case you didn’t know)

So let me ask you the same question I asked my audience this morning.

Are you happy? and I don’t mean “I can’t complain, things could be better. At least I am not as bad off as a lot of other people” kind of happy, I mean “if I was any happier, I might soil my pants” kind of happy.

Am I that happy?

I would be lying like a Mother Hugger if I said yes.

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Fighting the Writer’s Block

Posted on June 1, 2010 by Rasheed

Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having unfinished today. – Pablo Piccaso

And I am no longer willing to die having no more blog posts written.

I have been silencing my intuition a lot lately.

I have had countless ideas for blog posts that I just thought about and practiced writing in my head but never made it to the key board, thinking, I’ll do it in the morning. But when the morning came, it was no longer exciting. Or I came across another blog that talked about the same thing. Or… well, you get the idea.

So here I am, starting over. and just as I started typing I realized that today is the first of the month.

But, one thing is for sure. I have been giving a lot of thought to where I want to take this blog. I mean, what direction do I want to move in?

I have been trying to accommodate what I think I wanted to write about, based on what I thought what people might want to hear or read about, based on my own insecurities about what I really am good at. (if that didn’t confuse you, then either you are very intuitive, or I am a master communicator).

Anyway, I had the long weekend to myself, because my wife was in Florida attending a wedding, and my son was in Omaha participating in a National debate thingy of some sort. I had all the time and freedom to do whatever I wanted to do, and I chose to work and sleep. As my son put it upon his return, I have a very boring life.

Well, you can’t have that and write for blog on Living with Delight at the same time, can you?

So, it is time to liven up things and make some light hearted fun. I am speaking at a Toastmasters meeting tomorrow morning, and I”ll let you know how it goes. The title of my speech is “Happiness is an inside job.” I intend to record it, and maybe I’ll put it on the YouTube. We’ll see.

In the meantime have a wonderful delightful day.

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Growing Pains

Posted on May 21, 2010 by Rasheed

It’s been four five days since I last posted on this blog, and I don’t like it.

Like it or not, the fact remains, and that is bugging the hell out of me.

Where did I go wrong? what did I do or not do to cause the lapse in the flow.

I know the flow is important, but, I don’t want to post for the sake of posting. I want it to be meaningful to everyone, or at the least, be meaningful to myself. Otherwise, what is purpose? It’s a waste of time, both mine and yours, and I can’t do that to either one of us.

Yesterday, I took off in my van and headed to the nearest State Park in search of Inspiration. I have decided to try drawing, as a means of expression and had bought a sketch pad from Wal-Mart. my son brought me a box from his closet containing, in his words, “36 color pencils, 20 markers, and six thousand crayons.”

The act of drawing/painting didn’t really bring much joy or delight, but I realized that I have some mental inhibitions about how things aught to done. That realization was worth the time and effort made to get out of the doldrums that had engulfed me for a few days.

It seems I have not totally escaped the snares of the doldrums, as I was fighting them this morning. I finally realized that if I am to move forward and accomplish a life of  living with delight, I must grow and become larger than I am mentally, emotionally, and spiritually and stop getting larger physically.

Growth always requires change, and change can make one uncomfortable. It is this discomfort that I have been experiencing the last few days. I know I need to grow my income and build multiple profit centers, so I can have the freedom to live my life on my own terms.

In the past couple of months, I have increased my income to the point where what used to be a good week seems like a slow week now. I saved up enough money to put a down payment on a good used van, and am now planning on taking some short trips every so often. Having multiple profit centers will alleviate the concerns about the finances while I travel, even though my ability as a balloon artist enables me to earn income on the go, it would be nice to not have to depend on it.

How about you? What are the Growing Pains you are experiencing?

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Aw Crap… Oh Well!

Posted on May 16, 2010 by Rasheed

Aw Crap!

I shou’ld have known. I mean, anyone writing about Lifestyle Design would’ve probably, most likely known it.

Tim Ferriss, the man who made the term Lifestyle Design popular, uses the tagline Experiments in Lifestyle Design, for his blog; the same tag line that I chose for my blog. I didn’t know it at the time, because, I am not a frequent reader of The Blog of Tim Ferriss.

One of the blogs that I regularly read, Ridiculously Extraordinary, by Karol Gadja had highlighted a post by Rolf Potts, the author of Vegabonding, which was a guest post on the Blog of Tim Ferriss, and that’s how I found out that the tagline for this blog and the Blog of Tim Ferriss are identical.

Now, there is nothing wrong with that, because, we are both doing the same thing in our own way. We are each conducting experiments in Lifestyle Design. The only problem is that it makes me look not so creative. Given my hang ups on thinking that I am not very creative (and thanks to my friends and my tribe, I am beginning to see the lie in it), I don’t want something that could be considered unoriginal. I know that I chose that line after much deliberation, so it is original to my mind.

As I started writing this post, I was going to talk about the need of changing the tag line, and the immediate change that I had in mind was to call it Experiments in Lifestyle Design Too. But, as I was writing this, an incident from my past came to mind that has made me change my mind, and stick to the tagline that I have.

Back in the early 1990′s, when I was working as a waiter at the Black Eyed Pea restaurant, I had thought of using the word TEAM as an acronym. Together Everyone Achieves More. Yes, I had thought of that one all on my own. But then, a week later, the restaurant manager introduced the same concept and credited it to another waitress named Susie, who gave the credit to her husband Mike. I have never met Mike. Not then, not now, not ever.

So, here we are, two individuals coming up with the same concept individually. And as if that wasn’t enough, a few months later I joined a MLM group that called themselves TEAM Excell, with TEAM standing for the same acronym.

This is what I think. I think the Universe plants idea seeds in several people simultaneously. Some of them keep to themselves, and others share it with others. So what if I tagged blog the same as Tim Ferriss had tagged his sooner. He has not trademarked it, and my experiments are not the same as his experiments. We are both conducting Experiments in Lifestyle Design in our own ways.

But just in case, my blog becomes more popular than his down the line, I wouldn’t want him to get the benefit of all the search engine traffic that is created by my popularity. :-)

So, from this day forward, my blog will be tagged, Experiments in Lifestyle Design Too.

That’s my story, and I am sticking to it.

Posted in Lifestyle Design | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

Are You Lying to Yourself?

Posted on May 15, 2010 by Rasheed

I had an epiphany two weeks ago on a Friday night.

You see, Friday is busy night for my Balloon Twisting business, and generally speaking, I make 25-30% of my weekly income on Friday nights.

But two weeks ago, due to family activities, it got very late before I could go to work. Now, being Joyfully Jobless, I don’t have to be anywhere at anytime, so I was faced with the question “Do I want to go to work tonight?”

In the past, I would have gone to work, all the while blaming some family member for making me late, and that I won’t any money, and so on and so forth. Usually, I didn’t make much money when I went to work in that frame of mind.

So, on this particular night, I decided I was going to take the night off, and go on a small road trip, only because I couldn’t decide what I wanted to do.

As I was driving around it occurred to me that I don’t have to work in order to make money.

Now, I don’t mean that I can have money without putting out value. What I realized – the aha! moment I experienced – was that my underlying belief that if I didn’t actively participate, then I won’t make any money was a lie.  It was an experience of freedom from the fear that if I don’t work when I am supposed to, then I will run into financial problems. It was an emotional confirmation of an intellectual idea that I had held for a very long time, the idea of passive or residual income.

It was as if a load was taken off my shoulders.

Here is the interesting thing. A friend of mine called yesterday with a business proposition. It’s not a done deal, mind you, just a possibility, that he had expressed in the past, which I had rejected, because I didn’t want to get stuck. even though the proposal is designed to produce passive income, the old thinking was, that if I am getting paid, I’ll have to work, and then I’ll be stuck. This time, however, I told him that I was open to the idea and let’s proceed. He is arranging to meet with other people involved, and it is an area in which I have ample experience, and it is my experience that I am getting paid for, not my work.

This brings me to the realization that there might be other lies that I am accepting as truth, and which may be the cause of prosperity blocks. Time to question every thought from now on.

So, what are some of the lies you are telling yourself? Question your beliefs and check in with comments.

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Thursday the 13th

Posted on May 14, 2010 by Rasheed

I was thinking about consistency yesterday.

I really was feeling resistance to posting something on the blog, I kept telling myself that I have to be consistent in order to be successful.

At that point, I did something I have learned to love.

I asked myself, “Says who?”

I couldn’t find one person who says that whose opinion would matter to me.

And the only person whose opinion mattered, namely me, wasn’t buying the idea that I have to be consistent to be successful.

The reason I wasn’t buying it was, that all the times in my life when I had been “successful”, consistency was not a determining factor.

As a matter of fact, it was my attitude of the heck with following procedures (being consistent by other people’s definition), let’s take care of what the customer wants, is what had earned me the respect and recognition.

Before I knew it, the day was over, and I had not posted on this blog. The last time I remembered about not having posted, and the thought about consistency was when I got into bed, and if you think I was going to get out of bed to write a post on my blog for the sake of consistency, you don’t know me, do you?

It was either that, or the fact that yesterday was the 13th. nah….

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