Niall Doherty's Blog, page 214
December 14, 2014
100 People Doing Extraordinary Things (2014)
The past two years (2012 | 2013) I’ve put together lists of one hundred people doing extraordinary things. The message is simple:
All these people listed are made of the same star stuff as you, me, and everyone else. Nothing supernatural about them, yet they went ahead and did exceptional things anyways, excuses be damned.
Now, in case you’ve forgotten just how extraordinary your peers can be, here’s a fresh list for 2014…
1. Jessica Cox is the world’s only armless airplane pilot.
2. These dudes from the Czech Republic have driven the world’s cheapest car across Asia, Africa and South America.
3. Charles Ramsey rescued two teenagers from a ten-year kidnapping ordeal, then delivered an epic interview to the media.
4. Paul Salopek is on a seven-year walk to recreate the migration of early humans.
5. Hollie McNish refuses to be embarrassed by breastfeeding.
6. Kris Dim is a paralaysed pro body builder.
7. Ben Randall returned to Asia to find 100 random people he’d photographed five years before, and track down his young Vietnamese friend who had been kidnapped and sold into slavery. He succeeded.
8. Dan Kraus has rescued a thousand cats.
9. Tania Hassounia is an illustrator and graphic designer, running her business remotely while traveling the world and offering her services (free of charge) to non-profit ministries. You can order some unique Christmas cards from her here.
10. Sam and Geoff dove into an active volcano.
11. A few years back an 8-second video of Lizzie Velasquez appeared on YouTube with the title, “The ugliest woman in the world.” In response, she went ahead and became a motivational speaker, wrote two books, and graduated college.
12. Peter Nonacs, a professor at UCLA, encourages his students to cheat.
13. Ben Weiner paints paintings of paint.
14. Ghyslain Raza was made infamous and suffered relentless bullying on account of a video of him posted online eleven years ago. He’s since graduated law school and spoken out with words of encouragement for other victims of cyberbullying: “You’ll survive. You’ll get through it. And you’re not alone. You are surrounded by people who love you.”
15. This 12-year-old Egyptian kid is smarter than all of us.
16. The Pugh family spent a whole year without shopping in supermarkets.
17. Nathan Sawaya quit his job as a lawyer and became a LEGO artist.
18. Tyron Swan made a paraplegic’s surf dream come true by duct taping her to his back (no, really) and hitting the waves.
19. Thomas Backlund quit his job to live in a tent and write code.
20. Thor Pedersen is traveling to every country in the world… without flying.
21. Beth Whaanga, a mother of four, was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a double mastectomy and hysterectomy. Then she posed nude for a photographer and posted the photos online, proudly exposing her scars.
22. Jack Andraka developed a promising early detection test for pancreatic cancer that’s cheap, effective and non-invasive… all before his 16th birthday.
23. Shanna Syme bops along to your favorite songs in sign language. Like this one.
24. A group of schoolboys in the UK didn’t like an administrative ban on shorts. So they began wearing skirts to class.
25. Richard Dunn was trapped overnight at Las Vegas’ McCarran Airport with no one else around. So he made a music video.
26. Aaron Collins was just 30 years old when he died. In his will he asked his family to go out to dinner and leave an awesome tip, to the tune of $500. So they did. Word got out online and donations came flooding in, more than $60k in total, allowing the family to travel to all 50 states and keep on tipping.
27. This 65-year-old churchgoer sets an archbishop straight about gay marriage.
28. School clerk Antoinette Tuff encountered a man carrying an AK-47 assault rifle into an elementary school in Georgia and spent an hour convincing him not to hurt anybody. In the end, he didn’t.
29. Christina Stephens built a prosthetic leg from LEGOs.
30. Pieter Levels is launching 12 startups in 12 months while living out of a backpack.
31. Brittany and Scott both had life-long dreams of sailing around the world. Then they met, fell in love, bought a boat, and went for it. They’ve since started a family, and bought a bigger boat to accommodate the expanding crew.
32. Chinese artist Liu Bolin practices invisibility.
33. Maneesh Sethi and a few friends bought an island (more doable than you’d think).
34. Rob Lutter is cycling around the world and taking phenomenal photographs along the way.
35. Sébastien Soldevila et Mimi Bonnavaud pull off one of the most incredible dance performances you’ll ever see.
36. Andrei Rosu wanted to get in shape and set a good example for his son, so he began working out. One thing lead to another, and he became the first person to complete 7 marathons and 7 ultra-marathons on 7 different continents. He also became the first man to play drums at the North Pole.
37. Mitchell Roth saved $439 in thirty minutes of negotiation practice.
38. Mike and Anne‘s honeymoon lasted 675 days and took them through six continents and thirty-three countries.
39. Devin Lyttle helps you find places to refill your water bottle, so you don’t have to buy a new one.
40. Morten Rustad traveled 10,000 miles around Norway to create an epic time-lapse video.
41. Kirill Oreshkin takes selfies… while hanging from the top of very tall buildings.
42. Cheri Lindsay has a rare skin condition. Cassandra Bankson has had severe acne since she was in third grade. Both of them usually go heavy on the makeup to hide their imperfections. Until now.
43. Kate McCulley survived a shipwreck off shore of an Indonesian island most famous for its aggressive, man-eating Komodo Dragons.
44. This US solider would have made the forefathers proud.
45. Derek Cullen overcame crippling fear and anxiety to ride his bicycle across Africa.
46. Greg Goodman shares spectacular photos from nine years of world travel.
47. David Downie was more than your typical beer guzzler: he actually wrote the Australian portion of a famous beer bible. Then he quit drinking.
48. Leif Harum ran away from home at age 16 and traveled through Europe and the Middle East without a cent to his name.
49. Amichay Rab gets his picture taken at famous destinations around the world… while naked.
50. Eighteen years after a plane crashed in an African desert and all 170 people on board perished, the families of the victims gathered at the crash site to build a striking memorial.
51. Every day all around the world, millions of women living in poor rural areas have to carry big pitchers of water on their heads for miles and miles in blazing heat. Cynthia Koenig has a better idea.
52. Michelle Nickolaisen quit her job at an agency and started freelancing. Within ninety days, she’d replaced her day job income.
53. Josh Plotkin makes a hell of a Gangnam Style parody.
54. Canadian astronomer J. W. Campbell traveled the world for fifty years trying to see twelve different eclipses. He ran into overcast skies every time :-/
55. Frank Medrano defies gravity.
56. Scott Neeson was once president of 20th Century Fox International, overseeing films like Titanic and X-Men and driving his porsche around Hollywood. Now he lives in Cambodia, devoting all his time and energy to helping some of the poorest kids in the world.
57. Francis Tapon has walked across America four times.
58. This shirtless dude holding a dog at a wildfire is interviewed live on TV and immediately asks the reporter out on a date.
59. Jeroen Koolhaas and Dre Urhahn paint favelas.
60. Maura Ward was diagnosed with Parkinson’s at age sixty-four. For her sixty-fifth birthday, she skydived for the first time and raised a bunch of money for a Parkinson’s charity.
61. This flight attendant performs safety instructions like a comedian.
62. Stanford students were challenged to make as much money as possible in two hours starting with just $5, and then create a presentation to share their results. One group thought far outside the box and made $650.
63. Laura Hames Franklin invites people out to dance with her in public places.
64. A drag queen named Mama Tits grabbed a mic and bitch slapped the anti-gay protesters at this year’s Seattle Pride Parade.
65. Marina and Ulay ended their decade-long relationship by starting from opposite ends of the Great Wall of China and, after ninety days of walking, meeting in the middle to say goodbye. The plan was to never see each other again. But, twenty-two years later…
66. These three lads Irish danced their way around the world.
67. Benjamin Von Wong pulled off a surreal underwater photoshoot of beautiful women surrounded by shipwreck.
68. Andrew Lenz co-founded a climbing school which provides free climbing instruction to kids from the biggest favela in South America.
69. Anthony Vincent sings your favorite song in twenty different styles.
70. James Holman circumnavigated the globe… as a blind man… in 1832.
71. Xhongkai Xiang built a life-size Iron Man out of cardboard.
72. Claire Wyckoff combines her running routes with Nike+ to draw pictures of dicks (among other things).
73. Kayla Montgomery is one of the best young distance runners in America, despite suffering from multiple sclerosis and collapsing after every race.
74. Lee Thompson managed to convince the Brazilian tourist board to let him climb the famous Cristo Redentor statue in Rio de Janeiro.
75. Kawehi covers the uncoverable.
76. Anjan Manikumar‘s restaurant in downtown Toronto is completely staffed by deaf waiters and waitresses.
77. Jack Hyer decided he wanted to marry his girlfriend after their first date. But he also wanted to travel the world, so he traveled to twenty-six countries during four years of dating, filming an epic proposal video all the while.
78. Iranian mathematician Maryam Mirzakhani became the first woman to win the Fields Medal — known as the “Nobel Prize of mathematics” — since the award was established in 1936.
79. Shantanu Starick is traveling the world without any money.
80. Kyle Maynard climbed Mount Kilimanjaro without arms or legs.
81. Bruce Campbell lives in a Boeing 727 in the middle of the woods.
82. Brendan and Gillian Lally are driving themselves and their three kids home to Ireland… via Alaska, Patagonia and Africa.
83. Sam Simon helped create The Simpsons back in 1991, and thus amassed a great fortune over the years. Having recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer, he’s spending his final months giving it all away.
84. Masarrat Misbah has turned her Pakistani beauty salons into refuges for women who have suffered acid attacks.
85. Alex Chacon takes an epic selfie.
86. Fearghal Jo quit his job as a vice-president at a private equity firm to cycle from Ireland to India, where he then lived for several months in a forest community.
87. Joel Runyon is running seven ultra marathons on seven continents in order to raise money and awareness to build seven schools.
88. Alfred Ely Beach built New York City’s first subway line… in secret.
89. Princess Umul Hatiyya Ibrahim Mahama is a mother of six from Ghana, on a mission to visit every country in the world.
90. At 64 years of age and on her fifth try, Diana Nyad became the first person to swim the treacherous 100-mile stretch of ocean between Cuba and Florida.
91. Back in the 1950’s, Miguel de la Quadra-Salcedo invented a new way of throwing the javelin that added twenty meters to the existing world record. However, the record was never approved because the technique was deemed too dangerous.
92. Tsutomu Yamaguchi survived two atomic bomb blasts.
93. A dude named Winter is on a mission to drink a coffee in every Starbucks in the world.
94. Chloe and Nikita trained a wild Kaimanawa horse to gallop through the surf with a wakeboarder skimming along behind.
95. Fr. Ray Kelly is not your average priest.
96. Seventy-seven years after her namesake went missing over the Pacific, a lady named Amelia Earhart flew 24,300 nautical miles around the world.
97. Mike Hrostoski fell out of his office chair and started crying.
98. At 65 years of age, Mervyn Kinkead crossed the Irish Sea in a bathtub.
99. Dean Potter base jumps with his dog.
100. These three Norwegians broke the world record by visiting 19 countries in 24 hours.
…
Like I said up top, all these folks listed are just like you and me. The only thing stopping any of us from doing something extraordinary is ourselves. Let’s set those excuses aside and go do something amazing.
In the comments:
Add to the above list with more tales of people doing extraordinary things.
Tell me what extraordinary things you’ve done, are doing, or are about to do.
Dig this list?
Do me a quick favor and share it on Facebook, Twitter, or wherever else you like.
December 8, 2014
Over Beyond: Episode 001
I sometimes have these big, fascinating, meandering conversations with my cousin and best friend back in Ireland. We decided to record one and share it with you. Maybe it will become a regular thing.
In this first episode we talk about growing up in Ireland, protective parenting, time travel, books, commercialism, borders, etymology, woodworking, meditation, and a bunch of other seemingly unrelated topics.
Have a listen, and let us know what you think.
MP3 download available here (29MB, 1:01:47)
December 3, 2014
Momentos: November 16th – November 30th, 2014
For the second consecutive morning, I sit alone and I listen and I cry. I cry fucking hard, man, tears streaming down my cheeks. Last night was awful, gut-wrenching. I went home feeling like a loser, like I was never worthy of a girl like her in the first place. It crosses my mind that I might have made the biggest mistake of my life, but I let it go.
17.
Discipline and spontaneity in a never-ending tug-o-war. Sometimes, when discipline wins, I wonder what it is I’m working for. Like last night: cute girl invites me south of the city to watch a meteor shower… and I pass it up, too much to do tomorrow. Now I’m regretting that decision. Have I mastered my will, or has my will mastered me?
18.
I don’t believe everything happens for a reason. Sometimes shit happens and it sucks. The Stoics acknowledged this, but they also saw each obstacle as a way to practice some virtue, never letting a good crisis go to waste. Accordingly, I appreciate that in recent days I’ve had ample opportunities to practice patience, acceptance, humility.
19.
Giant arranged a double date, somehow got them straight to our place. Physically, my girl is every man’s dream. But looks are about all she’s got going. Her wallpaper is stacks of cash, books don’t please her, and she browses Facebook mid-conversation. No indication she wants to fuck me, but if she did, I like to think I’d make like Rhett Butler and frankly-my-dear her ass.
Overlooking Medellín
20.
Last week was tough but I think I handled it pretty well, bouncing back strong. The important thing to keep in mind when going through a rough patch is that everything comes and everything goes. Emotions and situations are temporary. They don’t define you. Writing helps, too. Get those thoughts out of your head and down in print. You’ll feel better, trust me.
21.
I had her on a pedestal, but not anymore. Spending a lot of time together, living in the same apartment, she appears merely human now. Today we annoyed the shit out of each other, then spent several hours in silent treatment, no remorse. Glad my infatuation is gone, but, if we’re not careful, our friendship will be, too.
22.
It’s good to have a key phrase, something you let spill out of your mouth before your brain can conjure up a reasonable excuse. Once those words are out there’s no going back. For cold approach I use, “Disculpe, tengo una pregunta…” For difficult conversations I’d rather avoid but know must be had, it’s, “Listen, I gotta tell ya…”
23.
The plan has always been to hit up New Orleans first, then embark on a big road trip west, spending about seven months total in North America. But now I’m thinking twice. A trip like that is only worth doing if my finances are sorted, and I’m not sure they will be. So I might head east from NOLA, and just keep on going. I could be home and done by summer.
24.
That said, I have to be careful. It’s tempting to look ahead, waiting for the next chapter to begin. But I’m here now, in the prime of my life, surrounded by all things Colombian. I’m finding it hard to let go and be social though, focused as I am on the money-making. Some days I feel my life is way off track, others that I’m exactly where I need to be.
25.
Out the front door, headed for my usual lunch spot. It’s another sunny day, and I’m without sunglasses. My last pair may have been stolen. Two blocks up a beautiful woman crosses my path, watched by two men in a truck at the traffic lights. I don’t talk to this woman or make eye contact. I let her pass and glance at her ass, then at the two men in the truck at the traffic lights.
Salsa class in Medellín
26.
I’m pretty bummed here in Medellín. It’s a cool city and all, but I think I’m just over this whole foreign culture lark. It’s been three years since I’ve lived in an English-speaking country, really starting to miss effortless conversations, random banter, understanding and being understood. The US in February will be like a warm hug to a lonely man.
27.
I wonder if Bukowski faced this. He wrote raw, no holds barred. He must have upset some people, writing about private moments, ugly details. He probably killed some relationships being so candid. And yet that was a big part of his appeal, why we know his name. Maybe you have to cross that line… but not me, not yet. I won’t tell you what I did for the first time today.
28.
If I don’t make the call, I have to skip cheat day and fast for thirty-six hours. So I make the call. Her name is Eleanor and she’s easy to talk to. We stay on for close to ten minutes and I follow up with an email. Then I dip chicharrón in guacamole, give my lady a hug, and head back to bed. It’s ten past twelve in the afternoon.
29.
I was aiming to win $5,000 of new business in November. A big project put me over the edge on Thursday, and now some unexpected work pushes me further ahead. I’m happy, but not satisfied. Earlier this week I interviewed people making $10-15k a month online through freelancing. No reason why I can’t do the same.
30.
It’s about noon as I sit up in bed, listening to music from big pink, trying to be still. She’s at my side, dozing. I watch her eyes twitch behind skin and flash back a fortnight, how unlikely this all was. She’ll move out later today. I’m savoring these moments, because now could well be the end of it, the last time we’re together like this.
Writing home
In the comments below, let me know which of the above Momentos is your favorite. Which can you relate to?
December 1, 2014
$5k November: Mission Accomplished!
November has come to an end, and therefore so has my self-imposed challenge to win $5k of new business within the month.
In my update last week, things weren’t looking too good. I’d secured only $2,005 worth of new business and I didn’t foresee any big projects falling out of the sky to save the day.
But, as it transpired, the sky did open and the day got saved.
One of my existing clients asked if I’d like to build a new website for him, and after chatting it out on Skype we agreed that my compensation for the project would be in the $3-5k range.
Adding just $3k to the pot to keep things conservative, while also adding numbers from a couple of other projects last week, that means I’ve exceeded my goal for the month by ten percent 
Happy, but not satisfied.
So as well as having lots of work to do these next few weeks, I’m now also tasked with figuring out how exactly I managed to pull this off!
But before I get to that, I should say that I’m not entirely satisfied with how the month went. Sure, I managed to reach the $5k goal, but the bulk of my “winnings” came from two great clients I’d been working with since long before November. These past few weeks I was hoping to figure out a solid system for landing big projects from new clients, so I wouldn’t be as dependent on the few I’ve already got.
As such, I realize there’s still plenty I can learn about lead generation, and I plan to experiment a lot more with that in the coming months.
What worked?
Now let’s talk about what did work well for me in November. Luck aside, which of my efforts proved most effective in the quest to win $5k worth of new business?
I believe it boiled down to three key things:
I let my best existing clients know that I was hungry for more work. This accounted for the bulk of the $5k.
I shouted from the rooftops (via my mailing list, social media, and private messages) to let everyone know what kind of work I could do and that I was available to do it. This led to four new clients.
I kept myself motivated and staved off procrastination by writing publicly about my intentions and efforts here on the blog.
And what didn’t?
I’m hesitant to rule anything out because some efforts that have so far been ineffective may yet bear fruit. For example, I made several cold calls last week, while a friend cold emailed a bunch of businesses on my behalf. Nothing has come of those efforts so far, but we’ll persist a little longer before drawing any conclusions.
One lesson learned the hard way during the challenge: Identify and communicate the biggest risks to a project as early as possible.
I say this because I invested about six hours discussing and putting together a proposal for a big project mid-month, only to realize near the end of those hours that the timeline was too tight and the client would be better off hiring someone with more availability.
It really shouldn’t have taken me six hours to figure that out, so a lot of time wasted there.
How did you do?
If you set your own income challenge for November, check in via the comments below and share how you got on.
Specifically, tell me:
What worked?
What didn’t?
What are you going to do next?
…
P.S. For reference, here are the previous posts in this series:
November Challenge: Win $5k in New Business (You Too?)
$5k November: Finding Work
$5k November: Update #1
$5k November: Update #2
$5k November: Update #3
P.P.S. Last week I interviewed four different people who are earning between $3k and $10k per month freelancing online. I’ll have those interviews ready for your ears soon. Sign up to my Business & Entrepreneurship list below to make sure you don’t miss them.
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November 23, 2014
$5k November: Update #3
Now entering the home stretch, here’s an update on my goal to win $5,000 of new business in November.
As of this writing, three-quarters of the way through the month, my income from all “new” business is at $1,650, and I have another $355 due from unfinished projects.
So that puts me at the $2,005 mark.
Last week I reported that I’d reached $1,775, so I really didn’t do very well since then, securing just an additional $230 in new business. That’s a pretty bad week no matter how you slice it, and I’m still a long way off the $5k mark :-/
Shaking things up
My primary strategy up until recently was to reach out to friends and acquaintances and let them know a) what kind of work I do, and b) that I’m looking to take on new projects.
The idea there is that you’re more likely to have work sent your way if lots of people are keeping an eye out for opportunities on your behalf.
This worked very well the first week of the challenge, but the past two weeks have shown me that it’s not a sustainable way of finding new clients. I’ve started to run out of friends/acquaintances I feel comfortable asking for help, and if I persist much more I risk become an annoyance.
So, what next?
The value of putting yourself out there
This is where I’m finding a lot of value in having this here blog and writing about my efforts. Several people have contacted me in recent weeks recommending different things I could try to find new work.
For example:
My buddy Tyler sent me a link to this article: A (Proven) Freelancer’s Guide to Growing Your Business
Radhika reached out to me with some great recommendations for finding fresh leads (she’s a pro at that kind of thing).
Adam jumped on Skype with me and told me how he’s been finding work online through some creative approaches.
Michelle sent me a link to a screencast explaining the process she used to go from $0 to $3k a month in 90 days with her freelance writing biz.
Now it’s one thing to have people send you stuff like that, and it’s another to take action on it. But by virtue of publicly committing to this challenge, I’m being far more proactive than I would be otherwise.
Whether I fail to make $5k this month or not, I don’t want to leave any room for someone to say that I could have tried harder.
As such, last Thursday I picked up the phone and tried one of Adam’s recommendations. Nothing has come of that call (yet), but it’s an example of an action that I could easily have talked myself out of if not for the public accountability I’ve created.
How can you hold yourself more accountable?
If you’re having trouble being proactive with this challenge or similar, experiment with some public accountability. Facebook is an easy place to start. Jump over there right now and update your status to say you’re going to do X, Y and Z this week.
Example:
Hey everyone,
I need some public accountability to try reach a lofty goal I’ve set for myself. I’m trying to earn $X,XXX this month as a freelancer, and to give myself a good chance of succeeding this week, I’m aiming to do the following:
Create a pitch email template.
Make at least two new pitches every day (Monday-Friday).
Follow up with all past clients by the end of the week and see if there’s anything else I can help them with.I’ll post an update on my progress every morning and evening here on Facebook. If you don’t hear from me, please call me out! A bit of social pressure will help ensure I follow through on this.
Thanks!
Another tool you can use for public accountability, with the added incentive of a monetary penalty should you fail to follow through: Go Fucking Do It.
How are you doing?
If you’ve come along for the ride and have set your own income goal this month, let me know via the comments below how it’s going for you. Specifically, tell me:
What’s working?
What’s not?
What are you going to do next?
Shout out to Sophia who has taken on the challenge this month and gave the following update in the comments of my last post:
I think that Nov. might be my biggest revenue month so far! I landed a new ongoing client who paid their initial planning fee early plus a one time client who paid $449 for a session. I also have been doing a bit more freelance writing and just got paid out for my Oct. writing gig (which was my biggest month). I’m hoping that Nov. is similar.
Hoping that I gross as much in 2014 as I did in 2012, before I was self employed. We shall see!
…
P.S. For reference, here are the previous posts in this series:
November Challenge: Win $5k in New Business (You Too?)
$5k November: Finding Work
$5k November: Update #1
$5k November: Update #2
P.P.S. If you know of anyone on the lookout for a great web developer, I’d love if you could send them this way!
November 18, 2014
Momentos: November 1st – November 15th, 2014
It’s about a year now since I decided to quit that passive income biz, to give up $4k a month easy money. Not long before that I announced my goal of banking $100k before the end of 2014. Right now, with only $2k to my name, I still feel fine about the former and a little embarrassed by the latter. Indeed, long is the way, and hard…
2.
As the story goes, he was drunk, might have been spiked, brought some random chick back to his private room at the hostel. He passed out, but came to in time to see her trying to leave with his shit. He tried to stop her, knife came out, arm got slashed. A struggle ensued, the cops were called, but somehow she managed to get away clean.
3.
It’s an art. You want to be approachable and allow for serendipity, but at the same time you need to set and enforce strong boundaries. I go through this every time someone starts chatting to me here at the hostel while I’m working. I’d like to be friendly and explore new friendships, new opportunities. But sometimes I gotta say, “Sorry man, I really need to get this done.”
4.
Few people seem eager to understand others. We’d rather find something to disagree with, jump to conclusions, unleash criticisms. It’s telling that arguments rarely end with someone saying, “Ah okay, I understand where you’re coming from now.” It’s easier to blame, and more tempting to try prove ourselves right, despite the cost.
5.
Flakiness in full effect, this stunner who’s been flirting with me outrageously all week via ones and zeroes bails out on our rendezvous at the last minute. But I’m not mad. Frolics would have been nice this afternoon, especially in the new pad with the skyline view, but I’ll still mark the day a nine on the contentedness scale. Loving what is, not what coulda been.
My Danish flatmate plays online poker for a living, up to eight tables at a time!
6.
Hit a patch of burnout today. Still got some work done, but there were also a couple of hours of youtubing in there. That time would have been put to better use if I’d grabbed a good nap, rested properly. Obvious what I need to do to get right, yet often resistance blocking the path. Why the self-sabotage? What purpose does it serve?
7.
Half my life ago, I went to NYC. For all intents and purposes, my first real trip abroad. My cousin and I ate at McDonalds, bought baggy shorts, and flipped quick from over-cautious to over-trusting. I’ll never forget the man with one tooth we met at the Garden, said he could get us Knicks tickets. We handed over $150 and lost him in the crowd.
8.
Giant. I like his style. Whether we’re walking down the street, through the supermarket, or across the bar, he’ll throw out a calm and confident, “Hola, cómo estás?”, to any girl who takes his fancy. Depending on the response, he might stop and interact a bit more. Makes me realize how simple the game can be; complications mostly in my head.
9.
Wager and myself thinking we’ve done pretty well bringing two girls back (though my lady says she has a boyfriend) until we walk in the door and find Giant with a pair on the couch and another in the kitchen, no big deal. Looks like the two roomies are sorted for the night, but no telling how it will unfold for me.
10.
Evening intercambio after a long work day. My Spanish is improving slowly but surely. Even though I’m living here in the thick of it, I keep the bar fairly low: a half hour of practice cada día is all I need accomplish. Anything beyond that is a bonus. Better the small goal you stick with than the big one you quit.
Intercambio meetup in Medellín
11.
Grinding it out, another long day at the home office, earned about $300 for my efforts. Which ain’t much given that I’ve been staring at a screen for most of these past twelve hours. Between paid work sessions I spend chunks of time looking for new gigs, writing proposals, and, of course, procrastinating like a mofo.
12.
Eleven months and eleven countries later, here we are, together again. The needle returns to the start of the song and we all sing along like before… or so I expected. But it’s not like that. Part of me wants things to be like they were, to jump right back in, while another part is comfortable with this distance between us, even as we sleep in the same bed.
13.
I’m sitting in a warm room with a hundred Colombians. There’s an American dude up front showing pictures of himself driving fast cars and hanging out with Owen Wilson. It’s a pitch for a pyramid scheme. I came here for a girl, thought she was digging me, thought it was a date. Apparently she was thinking something different.
14.
We’re still sharing a bed. It got awkward, but we talked it out last night, after I got back from my non-date. Tim Ferriss once wrote: “A person’s success in life can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations he or she is willing to have.” I don’t expect it to be easy going forward, but as long as we keep talking, we should be fine.
15.
Now there’s a competitive aspect. She’s going to get hit on a lot here (I’ve already seen it first-hand) and she’ll end up dating some alpha dudes. I’m not sure my ego can handle that unless I’ve got some plates spinning, too. So here I am, hanging out in Parque Lleras on a Saturday night, ready for a rampage.
Meeting Pablo Escobar’s brother in Medellín
In the comments below, let me know which of the above Momentos is your favorite. Which can you relate to?
November 16, 2014
$5k November: Update #2
Here’s the mid-month update on my goal to win $5,000 of new business in November.
As of this writing, halfway through the month, my income from all “new” business is at $900, and I have another $875 due from unfinished projects.
So that puts me at the $1,775 mark.
Last week I reported that I’d reached $1,160, so progress definitely slowed for me in week two.
So far this month I’ve spent significant time pitching and discussing big projects. One of them — which would have easily put me over the $5k mark — fell through on Friday, so that was a bit of a bummer, though I don’t think there’s anything I could have done different/better to seal the deal. It just wasn’t meant to be.
The week ahead
I need to follow up with one big prospect and see if we can work together. Other than that I mostly plan to keep doing what I’ve been doing: reaching out to friends and acquaintances and letting them know I’m available for web design/development work.
Alternative methods of lead generation
Even though, for the most part, I intend to stick with what I’ve been doing, I’m trying to be careful not to rule out other methods of lead generation. Last week two friends sent me this article: How to use AngelList to win more than 30 consulting offers in 30 days.
So I put aside an hour and followed the steps outlined there for generating leads on AngelList.
The result?
Nothing 
But the reason I bring it up is to encourage you to keep experimenting and taking action, even if you’re skeptical about certain ideas for finding work.
Doing something is always better than doing nothing. So don’t wait around waiting for the perfect plan to fall into your lap before taking action. Invest a little time in a few different ideas, track the results and see what pays off.
How are you doing?
If you’ve come along for the ride and have set your own income goal this month, let me know via the comments below how it’s going for you. Specifically, tell me:
What’s working?
What’s not?
What are you going to do next?
…
P.S. For reference, here are the previous posts in this series:
November Challenge: Win $5k in New Business (You Too?)
$5k November: Finding Work
$5k November: Update #1
P.P.S. If you know of anyone on the lookout for a great web developer, I’d love if you could send them this way!
November 8, 2014
$5k November: Update #1
Here’s a quick update on my goal to win $5,000 of new business in November.
As of this writing, a week deep into the month, my income from all “new” business is at $560, and I have another $600 due assuming two live projects are completed satisfactorily.
So that puts me at the $1,160 mark, which I’m quite pleased with.
Here’s a nice graph:
This weekend I’m also putting together a proposal for a pretty substantial project which could go a long way towards helping me reach my goal. We’ll see what happens there.
How am I getting leads?
As I mentioned last week, my primary strategy for finding work has been to reach out to as many people as possible and let them know I’m available for hire. After all, a client won’t think to hire me unless they know I’m available, right?
So part of my (almost) daily routine for the past week has been to personally reach out to 5+ friends and acquaintances and let them know that I’m actively seeking new projects and clients.
I’ve also been spreading the word via this blog, and I managed to drop a plug for my freelance services in a radio interview I recorded earlier today.
Every little helps 
How are you doing?
If you’ve come along for the ride and have set your own income goal this month, let me know via the comments below how it’s going for you. Specifically, tell me:
What’s working?
What’s not?
What are you going to do next?
…
P.S. For reference, here are the previous posts in this series:
November Challenge: Win $5k in New Business (You Too?)
$5k November: Finding Work
November 5, 2014
Momentos: October 16th – October 31st, 2014
I do love me some deep conversation, mind-expanding stuff. Probably why I find myself craving more stability lately, both in location and relationships; easier to have those frequent mind stretches with people you know well. Tonight in Santa Marta, thanks to a limitless lady and her fella, that itch got scratched.
17.
Chatting with a girl just back from La Ciudad Perdida. She’s busted up: swollen ankle, band-aids, mosquito bites. Another girl had to be carried down the mountain on a donkey after wrecking her foot. What’s amazing though is that more people don’t suffer a similar fate. It’s 26 miles of footfalls on rough terrain, a minor miracle most don’t put a foot wrong.
18.
In from a kick around with the local kids, cooling off in the pool as I get stuck into a bio of Simón Bolívar. I visited his deathbed earlier today. You can’t go far in the Americas without noticing cities, mountains, entire countries named after the man. Behind me there’s the sound of travel chatter, billiard balls, Erykah Badu singing baby you got me, and the final scene of Pulp Fiction.
19.
Up before the dawn, reading Lennox and taking notes. Apparently there is still little evidence of intermediary species in the fossil record, no strong link between reptiles and birds, for example. Paleontologist David Raup: “The record of evolution is still surprisingly jerky and, ironically, we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than we had in Darwin’s time.”
20.
My seventh overnight bus in six weeks, carrying me upwards to the city of the eternal Spring. There’s a morning pit stop at a roadside cafe, the place decorated with scores of portraits of scientific heroes. Einstein, Kepler, Curie, Hubble, Newton… and dozens more I’ve never heard of. I want to know them all, their stories and accomplishments.
Learning about Simón Bolívar in Santa Marta
21.
Standing listening to this dude go on and on about clean counter tops and no visitors under any circumstances and please don’t let the garbage pile up and don’t bang the door because we wake up at six every morning and my brain thinks, a) wow this guy really needs to get laid and, b) there’s absolutely no way in hell I’m going to live here.
22.
The apartment search is exhausting, another side of the nomadic lifestyle that’s lost its luster. I remember how fun it used to be, like back in my Amsterdam days. An adventure! Now it’s nothing but a drain on my time, energy, and finances. As they say, the grass is always greener on the other side, but it’s still a bitch to mow.
23.
Aside from the accommodation frustration, I’m liking Medellín a lot so far. The streets are green, the cost of living is decent, and you can even drink the tap water! Not sure yet about the dating scene. I hear it’s more like Thailand than Brazil, which doesn’t bode well. Still, I could see myself returning someday to live long-term.
24.
Ralph Nichols once said, “The most basic of all human needs is the need to understand and be understood.” As such, one of my favorite questions to ask people these days: What do you think is the most misunderstood thing about ________? Fill in that blank according to the person you’re speaking with. Mormonism, America, paleontologists, whatever.
25.
It’s been an epic day of hanging out and sightseeing with some of my favorite people in the world. Now we’re on the metro headed back towards Poblado. I’m due to come good on a lost bet and sing aloud in the park, been getting my mind right. Until Caroline proposes that I just go ahead and belt one out right there in the metro car. My breath catches. Gotta do it.
Epic day out with Man Vs. Clock, Next Stop Who Knows, Life Is Limitless, and other legendary people.
26.
Wee hours of the night and sleep is dragging at my eyes, but I lie awake reading back through Momentos from a year ago. December 6th was the last time I saw her, the last time we said goodbye. We joked then that maybe we’d meet up again in Colombia. I’m already here, and she’ll arrive in a few weeks. I wonder how it will be.
27.
I still love to play, reveled in getting out there and scrimmaging across the street this afternoon. One local kid on my team was shooting the lights out, but he was also a ball hog. I switched teams so I could D up on him. Much more fun trying to slow his roll than watching him drop buckets for my benefit.
28.
I posted a public goal earlier today, aiming to win $5,000 worth of new business in November. Honestly, I’m nervous about this, not sure I’ll succeed. Even $1k a week is a ton for me right now. To do better than that four weeks running? Fuck man, I don’t know… I could fall flat on my face here. Deep breaths, deep breaths.
29.
It’s not so much that I want to date someone or be in a relationship right now. I’m quite content being single, having all my time to myself. So why the unease, the craving for female attention? The real issue, methinks, is a lack of sexual expression. That’s what I’m missing most. Being bold and assertive and dominant, a man who goes after what he wants.
30.
I’ve been in Medellín for eleven days now, have viewed seven places, investigated dozens more… and still nowhere to call home. It wouldn’t be so bad if I had to do this once every year or two, but we’re talking four times in the past twelve months. It’s a problem more money would easily solve, another reason I want to be rich.
31.
There’s a kid soldier waiting for the metro, a princess across the track, and a ghoul looking out from the carriage. But that’s nothing compared to Poblado, where all kinds of costumes collide. There’s a guy dressed as an empanada, Michael Jackson dancing with zombies, and enough skin, cleavage and latina smiles to drive a man half-mad.
See what I mean? (More Medellín Halloween pics on Facebook.)
In the comments below, let me know which of the above Momentos is your favorite. Which can you relate to?
October 31, 2014
$5k November: Finding Work
A few days ago I announced my goal of winning $5,000 of new business in November, and invited you to join me with your own freelance goal. If you’re already on board, great! If not, it’s not too late!
So now let’s get stuck into the reality of this. The first and perhaps biggest challenge is to find new clients to work with, new projects to work on.
How the hell do we do that?
Here’s where I take inspiration from the words of Byron Katie:
“You could have anything in the world you wanted if you were willing to ask 1,000 people for it.”
I’m going to test this hypothesis throughout November, and I encourage you to do the same.
No ask, no get.
With that in mind, the past few days I’ve been putting together a list of contacts I can reach out to. These are friends, acquaintances, past clients, and pretty much anyone else I can think of that I already have a positive relationship with.
So far I’ve come up with about 120 people.
I’ve placed all their names in a spreadsheet. My next step is to begin reaching out to them.
What do I say to these people?
I simply tell them that I’m actively seeking new web design and development projects, and ask if they or anyone they know has something I might be able to help with.
That’s pretty much it.
I figure the more people who know I’m available for hire, the better. That way I have hundreds of eyes and ears out there in the world helping me find work.
(Which is another reason why I made my $5k goal public in the first place! By writing about this challenge, all my blog readers now know that I’m available for hire as well.)
“But what if I don’t know many people?”
Now you may be thinking that I have an unfair advantage here, because I have this blog platform and can easily reach a lot of people. And I’m also a pretty social guy with lots of friends and acquaintances around the world who I can contact and ask for help.
But what if you have no significant online presence, and you’re having a hard time listing even ten different people you could reach out to?
My advice would be to get busy building relationships.
Relationship building is a long-play and you may not see significant results from it within a month, but it’s probably the best thing you can do for your business in the long run.
Because at the end of the day, business is about relationships. People want to work with people they like and trust. So it’s important that you get out there and be friendly, be helpful, be likeable.
And it’s not just about making new friends or acquaintances either. Probably more important is staying in regular contact with the people you already know, checking in on them every so often and taking a genuine interest in their lives.
I actually make it a point to reach out to at least one old friend or acquaintance every day. I have it as a daily task on my to-do list so I don’t forget.
Wrapping up
A few action items for you:
Make a list of all the friends and acquaintances you can reach out to for help finding work. (If you’re on the fence about somebody, put them on the list. What harm?)
Start reaching out to several people on that list every day.
Simultaneously, begin a daily practice of reaching out to friends and acquaintances without asking for anything. Just check in and say hi, ask how everything is going for them. Take a genuine interest in their lives.
Lastly, I want to hear from you in the comments below.
First, let me and everyone else there know what kind of work you do, what kind of services you offer. And second, please share any other ideas you have for finding new projects/clients this November.
