Far Beyond The Stars: The Archives

Written by Everett Bogue | Follow me on Twitter.

One of the most common emails I get is from people who have difficult decisions to make.

“I want to live the minimalist freedom lifestyle, but I can’t decide if I want to keep my house and my car.”

This message is for all of those people out there who have a hard decision to make.

If you’ve already made hard decisions, congratulations! Now go enjoy the remaining summer days in the park.

The difficulty of hard decisions.

Whether it’s leaving your wife, destroying your car, burning the bridges at your high paying job you hate, or running away from your childhood home. It’s all the same, and it’s all hard.

The truth is that you deserve to be happy, and something is in the way.

For years you couldn’t figure out what the problem was, instead you had this raw aching feeling that something/somewhere was terribly wrong.

Somewhere along the way you figured out that society as we know it was broken. It actually died a long time ago. In the wreckage of suburbia, the desolate sprawl of decay and discontent, you found the answer.

Everything they told you about the life you were supposed to lead was wrong.

• Building walls doesn’t bring safety.
• Buying a car doesn’t get you chicks.
• Watching TV news actually makes you paranoid.
• Having a good job at a desk didn’t make you happy.
• Eating chicken nuggets didn’t stop you from starving.

So you kept searching, and now you’re here.

The future of our society is now.

Our society is being reborn, but in order to follow the path we have to make tough choices. There will have to be yes or no answers. You can’t keep it all and have freedom too.

Sooner or later the moment will come when you can’t hide from the things we’ve done anymore.

…and you’ll have to make a choice, which I really believe is between life and death.

Look around you. Can you tell the difference between those who are the walking dead and the ones who are actually alive? I can, and the living surround me. Every day another one of you wakes up and realizes the journey to the future is this way.

The difference between that life and the life you want to lead is a choice. You either choose to live, or you choose the opposite.

I chose life. That’s why you’re reading this blog.

You might have choose already, and that’s amazing. You might not realize that there is a choice, someday you will.

If you’re at the crossroads, you have a decision to make. Freedom or prison? A slow death at the hands of the crumbling remnants of corporate America or building your own path to freedom.

You can’t have it both ways, I’m sorry. It just doesn’t work that way, there is no middle way.

The time to decide to choose life is now.

Here’s a quick guide to making hard decisions, I hope it will help you make yours.

1. Don’t ask everybody if it’s okay.

The sad reality is that most of the people you surround yourself are the walking dead. They’ve given up and don’t understand why you want a better life for yourself. If you ask all of your friends who are stuck in the perpetual cycle of consumerism, you’ll get a standard antiquated response. They can’t understand what you’re going through, because they don’t know. Surround yourself by successful people to become successful.

2. Instead ask people who’ve done it.

I’ve met a lot of successful people over the last year, and every single one of them would encourage you to dream big. Why? Because they’ve done it. So, here’s what I want you to do. Run your courageous dream by some enthusiastically successful people. You don’t have to look far to find them — and I’d encourage you not to restrict yourself to uber-successful unreachable individuals. Just find someone who’s making over $100,000 doing what they love and ask them how they got that place. Chances are it was because they dared to dream big and embrace a new reality.

3. Kill your babies.

You’re going to have to make some sacrifices, this much is inevitable. Nothing comes without a trade. You can’t have it all and have minimalist freedom success too. Sell your house, donate your car, restrict yourself to less than 100 things, break up with your loser of a boyfriend, say mom I’m never coming home again. The answer is that every action you take has infinite actions that you will never explore. Your actions will be more successful if you kill as many alternate actions as possible and focus on the important.

4. Focus on your priorities.

What do you actually want to achieve? Focus on that. You need to dedicate at least 80% of your time to achieving that goal. That means you’ll probably need to kill some other paths of action. You can’t maintain your big house and still travel the world, it just doesn’t work that way. Everything must maintain balance, and it’s easier to balance yourself if you only do a few things.

5. Jump.

At some point you need to burn your bridges. I know your uncle told you never to burn your bridges, but that’s false. In order to take one path you must burn all of the others. Take a leap into the lake and see if you sink or swim. You’re sinking all already, you have to give up all of your junk in order to fly. The only way you’ll learn is to jump. Jumping is scary, and yes, you might fail.

But ultimately success doesn’t come without 10,000 failures.

If you aren’t willing to fail at things, you won’t succeed at anything.

Meditation in action.

Take a moment and meditate on this for 15 minutes. Turn off your computer, sit in silence and think about everything in your life that you wish wasn’t a part of your life. These are the hard decisions you have to make. Live with the consequences of your actions, or be free of everything that haunts you.

Your current situation, your past, your anger and your jealousy. It’s all useless.

What matters is now, and the decisions you make to free yourself.

Yes, this is hard, but ultimately it’s harder living with all that you can’t leave behind.

Written by Everett Bogue | Follow me on Twitter.

I keep talking about saving the human race on this blog, and I realize that a certain number of you don’t really realize what that means.

So, I figured I’d explain.

You see, the way we’re living isn’t sustainable for two reasons:

1. We’re very unhappy.

2. We’re destroying the planet.

One of the main reasons that I’m so into minimalism, is it solves both of these problems.

Why your friends are unhappy.

Someone emailed me the other day and asked “do you really think people live the way you describe?” Meaning Hummer-driving TV-watching coca-cola-sucking dumb people that I talk about all the time.

YES! They do. In fact, most people are living this way in America right now. The average TV watched by Americans is 35 hours a week. That’s like a second job dedicated entirely to a medium which convinces you to buy stuff.

On the TV you see happy smiling faces walking out of the mall with three bags stuffed full of junk, and you think you’re supposed to act this way.

Now, obviously you don’t live this way, but your friends do, right?

The problem with mass consumerism.

The thing about this whole equation is that buying a lot of stuff radically decreases your ability to be a happy person.

When you buy stuff in order to be happy, you get addicted to the little jolts of adrenaline you get when you drop $259 on a pair of shoes. Then you go home and realize you already have seventy pairs of shoes and you start to feel sad immediately. So you jump back into your human wheel pod and drive back to the mall to drop more money on shoes, instantly feel happy, until you drive home again.

Repeat and repeat and repeat. It’s the endless cycle of consumerism, and it’s why your friends are on anti-depressants.

How did we get here?

The TV was the ONLY way to get information short of reading actual books and going to college before the Internet. Television studios make more money when they put more ads that convince you to buy more stuff in between their shows. This makes you want to buy more shoes, because OMG you absolutely must dress like SJP <– who is being paid to wear the clothes you see her on the television wearing.

Most magazines are supported by the same consumerist craptastic situation.

In fact, magazines were invented to sell you crap by balancing valuable information with brief psychological stimulation that will make you want to run out to Louis Vuitton and drop your monthly salary on a handbag.

It’s all crap, and you know it. This is why you’re reading this blog, because you need someone to tell you that the televised life you imagined yourself having was a joke from the beginning.

You’ve been conned into trying to live like the cast of Friends, when in reality you’d be much happier not buying stuff.

How to cancel the apocalypse.

Alright, so the world is coming to an end. We’ve burnt our way through so much oil that the only way we can get more is to occupy foreign countries and kill millions of people in order to keep the price of oil down.

Yes this is true. I know they don’t tell you that it’s true on the news, but the news just wants you to keep watching so you’ll buy more crap during the commercial breaks. This leads to the news concentrating on stories such as how you might get mugged if you go outside your house or leave your car, what Obama wore to work today, and the stock marketing going up and down instead of dealing with real issues.

Believe me, you won’t die in a gunfight in the hood. You’re going to die from boredom, depression, and on the highway when you get sideswiped by an SUV. Go ahead and google “most common ways to die.” Believe me, they involve driving and sitting on your butt too much.

The Internet changed how information flowed on a fundamental level. If you turn off the garbage on your TV, you’ll start to realize that the world is more than what they told you on the radio.

Where your TV needs to go.

Take your TV up on your roof, and drop it off. Trust me, you’ll feel much better after that.

Don’t forget to first look down to make sure no one is going to get hurt when you drop your TV.

Unless your car is parked down there, then I give you permission to just go ahead and drop it.

This doesn’t mean you can’t download a TV show that you really want to watch. I’m downloading the season premiere of Dexter right now. But you know what? I paid for it so that I don’t have to watch the ads. I actually want to watch Dexter, because I actually like the show. I’m not just mindlessly sitting on the coach for 35 hours a week wondering why there’s nothing on besides infomercials.

Your happiness is in direct harmony with the happiness of the entire human race.

Despite the fact that my girlfriend just broke up with me a few weeks ago, I’m the happiest I’ve ever been. Why? Because I have a simple uncluttered schedule that allows me to pursue important things in my life.

The Everett Bogue happy schedule:

Here’s what I do with most days…

I wake up, and make a fruit smoothie.

I go get a coffee and write stuff.

I hang out in the park if it’s a nice day and watch cute San Francisco girls and boys walk by.

I eat something that tastes good and is somewhat healthy.

I go practice yoga at Yoga to the People in San Francisco.

I go grab a beer and write a little more, or meet up with friends.

I go home and sleep with a smile on my face.

I know, it’s not much of a schedule. There’s no running around like a crazy person or frantically cursing out people as I commute two hours to work in order to sit at a desk for 8 hours a day. To some of you this might even seem kind of boring, but believe me, it’s not.

The secret of happiness.

Happiness comes from working towards mastery in a subject you’re passionate about. Sitting at a desk is NOT working towards mastery, it’s working in slavery while your spinal column degrades before you’re old enough to enjoy your 401K.

Writing challenges me. Yoga challenges me. Drinking coffee or beer makes me smile. It’s a simple daily schedule that really rocks my world, no matter what happens. This schedule is not dependent on vast amounts of wealth to sustain it. In fact, it doesn’t really matter how much money I’m making. Coffee costs less than $2, and I can’t drink more than two cups a day without going insane. Yoga is only $10 (and it’s donation based, so if I happened to be starving I could still go.) I might have a burrito for lunch and that’s only $6. The fruit for my smoothie probably cost around $5.

Being happy doesn’t need to cost a lot of money.

But instead you’re told that you need a 5-bedroom house. You need to get a new car every two years. You need to pursue a career, and in order to do that you need permission from a University. If you can’t get a job after you graduate, they insist that maybe you just need to go back again for grad school. Still can’t figure out what you want to do with your life? Well, you could always get a P.H.D.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad that neurologists have to study a lot before they operate on people. However, you’re honestly not going to learn how to write better while you’re pursuing your doctorate in creative writing. You’ll learn to write better by writing, and that doesn’t cost anything.

Most people just want to write stuff and do Yoga, right? Well, whatever you’re into, you’re into doing that, and not into listening to someone tell you what to do. Believe it or not, doing what you want to do doesn’t have to cost a whole bunch of money.

Saving the world can also make you healthier.

I realize that burritos and beer isn’t the ideal diet for a slim fit body, and yet I only weigh 160 pounds? How can I possibly be so slim and fit and yet enjoy life so much?

Well, the answer is that I don’t own a car and I spend my entire life in the world instead of sitting at a desk. In fact, I don’t even OWN a desk.

Believe it or not, walking all over the place really is the secret to weight loss. That and understanding that the television conned you into buying pre-packaged foods that are made out of hi-fructose corn syrup.

This is why everyone in San Francisco, Portland, and New York is so freakin’ hot. It’s because in these cities we have to walk everywhere, and no one owns a car or a TV. I’m sure someone will email me saying that all of the hotties move to the cities, but I don’t think that’s true at all.

Living without a car and a TV makes you attractive.

If you eat only food made out of whole ingredients, such as fruits, vegetables, meats, nuts, etc, you’ll be much healthier. I hear grains (especially refined ones) are bad for you, so I won’t recommend them. Most food you buy in the center of the supermarket is corn that’s been turned into goop and made to look like a food, when it’s really just a sugar lollipop. Cereal is a lollipop. Microwave dinners are a lollipop. McDonalds makes the soup they turn into burgers and milkshakes out of meal worms. Your friends are fat because they’re eating lollipops disguised as food, and meal worms delivered through a drive-through window. Oh, and they have cars. (By meal worms I mean corn mixed with meat that smart people would refuse to eat.)

Eat food. Mostly vegetables. Destroy your TV. Destroy your car.

Move somewhere where people are actually happy and can walk places like San Francisco.

Yes, I know you’re going to email and say that San Francisco wouldn’t be so happy if everyone lived here, because it’d be too crowded. But you know what? If everyone moved out of LA because they didn’t want to sit in traffic for 3 hours every day, LA would get a whole lot more walkable a whole lot faster and more people would want to live there.

So don’t email me arguing that we can’t change the world, instead take your TV and… you know the drill (if you skipped to this part, go back up and read “what to do with your TV.” Then do what I told you to do, trust me, you’ll be happier than you’ve ever been in your entire life.)

How does this save the world?

Happiness comes when we bring ourselves into harmony with our environment. When we has human beings are in harmony with our environment, we generally stop destroying it.

The TV and your car are taking you in the wrong direction. You need a car because you live in a place where you cannot be in harmony with your environment. You need a TV to entertain you because living where you’re living with a car is making you unhappy.

You’re unhappy because you sit in a car all day, and then come back and sit on your couch all night, which makes you want to buy a new car because you think it will make you happy. Really you’re just wasting thousands of dollars on a piece of metal that isolates you from the world — and thus happiness. When you spend 20-grand on a car, you have to work a gazillion hours to pay that off.

The world is unhappy because you have to work a gazillion hours to pay off your car.

The only solution is to stop driving, stop buying, stop watching TV, sell your crap, and start living your life.

The fate of your universe is in your hands. Will you take this opportunity to fix it?

–

If you want to save the human race, there’s a very cool opportunity available right now. Karol Gajda convinced a whole bunch of us authors to package all of our ebooks together for the low price of $27. So, if you ever wanted to read every single book from Smalltopia to The Luxury of Less, now is the time to act (before Oct 7.) The Art of Being Minimalist is in the package, along with 10+ other books. Check out the details here.

Written by Everett Bogue | Follow me on Twitter.

Without a doubt, every single person I’ve met who has a command of the ability to make their own money is more charismatic.

The reason for this is simple: if you have mastery of the ability to provide value in order to generate income it boosts your self-confidence. Then you can declare independence from the system of wage slavery.

You’re no longer scared of losing your job, because you know if you do it’ll only be a matter of time before you build up your own empire.

How to declare independence.

Most of the people who I meet have jobs that they’re terrified to lose. This makes me sad, especially now that I’m on the other side — I’d never let anyone pay me to work for them even if they begged me!

Why would you sit at a desk all day waiting to die when you have an opportunity to make a small amount of money online and then grow it?

In fact, I’d like to argue that making a small amount of money online is incredibly easy. Making $4.95 can’t be hard right? This article will show you how. Once you make $4.95, you can try for $10 in a day, then make your way towards $80 (which is all you really need anyway.)

Alright, blah blah money making this and that. You’ve heard this all before right?

Well no, because I intend to explain to you exactly how you can declare independence by earning an incredibly small amount of money with minimal effort.

A history of making money online.

You see, back when I was in Portland more than a year ago now, I had no idea how to make money online even though I’d worked online for four years before that.

I had this weird misconception –that I think a lot of people share,– that in order to develop income online I would have to write about Lady Gaga and place advertisements against the stories. People would click, I would make a little bit of money.

This is one way to make money online, the problem is that it’s very hard to do this. You see, no one clicks on ads anymore. I certainly don’t. Do you click on ads? Not if you’re smart, and if you’re reading this blog without sipping on a coke while stuck in traffic driving your SUV I know you are quite smart.

Advertising is a bad business model on the web for most businesses, because it takes a massive amount of readers to sustain your business off dumb people clicking on ads.

If you aim for a dumb audience, you have to write a dumb blog. I certainly didn’t want to do that, and neither do you. I realize a certain percentage of my readers are absolute idiots, but I’m not writing this for them. I’m writing it for you smart people out there. Dumb people: this is your cue to unsubscribe. This blog isn’t for you.

How I made my first $4.95 online, and you can too.

Back to the future in Portland, I was sitting with a Stumptown coffee being incredibly stumped about how to make a living online, and it hit me:

1. I’m writing a blog about minimalism.
2. One of my favorite books is about minimalism.
3. My favorite book has a 50% affiliate program.

So, that day I signed up for a free account with e-junkie and dropped a link to A Simple Guide to a Minimalist Life somewhere in a blog post.

I published something simple like this in my blog post:

“One of my huge inspirations for living a minimalist life came from reading Leo Babauta’s A Simple Guide to a Minimalist Life.”

Then I did some Yoga, burned some incense, and went to bed while the Portland rain splattered quietly on my windows.

The next morning I woke up, made breakfast, and then went out into the world with my laptop to grab a coffee. When I opened my email, to my surprise a little message was there:

“Sale – Leo Babauta- ID:XXXXXXXX The Simple Guide to a Minimalist Life”

I almost fell over backwards because for the first time in my life I’d paid for my coffee BEFORE I’d bought it!

I’d made money in my sleep! Yay!

Now, $4.95 might not seem like a lot of money, but at the time I was making zip, nada, nothing. Taking this small step really gave me a lot of confidence that this whole business model might actually work.

You only need to be making $80 a day to do $30,000 a year. Only one year after making this discovery, I’m doing far more than $80 a day. You can too, but you have to start at $4.95 first.

If you think about it, how much harder is it to make $80 after you’ve made $4.95? Actually, not much. The biggest leap is the first dollar. You don’t need to be making millions, just $80. It’s not as hard as you think it is.

What is e-junkie?

E-junkie is a pretty basic service that handles most of my business automation. It’s free for people who are affiliating for products, but only costs $5 a month if you’re selling a digital product. I use e-junkie for two purposes:

1. To sell other people’s products and get commission. I can’t make every product in the world myself, so luckily I can make a small profit off selling other people’s products. For example, last month I made nearly $1,000 in a day selling Corbett Barr’s Affiliate Marketing for Beginners. Of course you all remember the day I made $2,300 selling one of the most important digital works thus far.

2. To sell my own products. E-junkie handles the distribution, payment, and affiliate payouts for my products. This means that I don’t have to e-mail my book to people every time they buy it, which is amazing. This means I can focus exclusively on writing, and not have to worry about the administration side of my business — because it’s all automated. Automation is covered extensively in Minimalist Business.

How not to be sketchy.

One of the biggest take-aways from my ongoing conversations-over-many-beers with superstar marketing and website traffic generating expert Corbett Barr has been that you CANNOT get away with being sketchy as a marketer online.

Big flashing red buttons, pyramid schemes, and selling people shitty products that don’t help them are out. Instead, affiliating for products that actually help people is the future.

I never recommend products that didn’t contribute to my life, you shouldn’t either.

Also, remember that most — probably 95% of your readers don’t necessarily need the product you’re recommending. So, don’t bang them over the head with it. Just say “hey, I read this e-book and it taught me about this. If you’re into this, maybe check it out.” Simple, but it actually works.

Big red ‘buy this NOW’ buttons do not work. Instead, our sketchification alarm goes off and we bolt.

Also, after extensive testing, I really believe that putting pictures of e-books in your sidebar as recommendations doesn’t sell them either. Pictures in sidebars scream advertising to most people.

How to find a product to affiliate for on your blog.

If you’ve been reading my blog for long, chances are you’ve picked up one of these remarkable products that I’ve recommended.

There are obviously many more, but these are some of the ones that I really enjoyed — and are also very professionally developed by charismatic people and thus are easier to sell.

(These are all affiliate links)

Tammy Strobel’s Smalltopia: A Practical Guide to Working for Yourself

Chris Guillebeau’s The Unconventional Guide to Working for Yourself

[As a sidenote: basically anything Chris Guillebeau sells is gold for most of your readers. His stuff is super helpful, intelligent, and useful. I’ll be at his World Domination Summit next year, maybe I’ll see you there?]

Corbett Barr’s Affiliate Marketing for Beginners

Colin Wright’s Networking Awesomely

And here are two new e-books that have recently blown me away:

Adam Baker’s Sell Your Crap

John Anyasor’s The Power of Enjoyment

But you need to trust yourself. Like I said above about Leo’s book, it really changed my life. That’s why I was able to say legitimately that I could recommend it enthusiastically over and over again.

It also feels really good to know you’re making coffee or beer money (or rent money!!!) helping people achieve their goals.

Strategies for landing your first few dollars.

Finally, here are the top two strategies that I use to sell products that matter on Far Beyond the Stars.

Pay attention! These strategies actually run counter to what Problogger or Copyblogger will tell you to do.

Why am I dissing these guys? Because I read them both for three years and never learned how to do what I’m teaching you to do here — instead they just kept sending me a fluffy post per day about nothing important and trying to sell me stuff I don’t need.

Plus, my blog is almost as big as Copyblogger now, and I’ve only been doing this for a year. I must be doing something right.

If you want to learn how to start a blog, read either Viperchill or Think Traffic. These sites actually tell you how to build a blog, instead of just sending you a fluffy post every day with information that isn’t helpful like the aforementioned larger blogs.

I’ve tried a lot of strategies, these two get the best results.

1. Interviews with authors.

My #1 strategy for selling work that matters is an interview with the author. Ask the author “how will this help my readers achieve their specific goal?” and other questions. Focus on the benefits of the product. Make sure to put an affiliate link to the product in the post in a few key points. Make it clear that if your audience buys this, they will support your blog and the author of the product.

2. The quick mention in-post.

Sometimes if I’m talking about a subject that’s similar to a product I’ve read, I’ll mention it casually. For example, if I’m writing about personal finance, I always say “hey, if you want to learn more about getting out of debt, one of the best books I ever read on the subject was Adam Baker’s Unautomate Your Finances.”

Believe it or not, the casual reference does WAY better than trying to do a review of a product in the traditional sense. A review assumes your entire audience might want the product, which isn’t the case. You’re making a whole bunch of people who don’t care read something they probably don’t want to read.

I don’t like reading reviews, do you? No, because you’re smart. Interviews and casual mentions work best — but obviously do your own testing to see what works best with your audience.

Obviously making money online isn’t for everyone.

Some of you are happy sitting all day at a desk working 40 hours a week. The point of this article is simple: learning how to make a small amount of money, even $4.95, can boost your self-confidence immensely and allow you to begin to start declaring independence.

If you know you could build a business making $80 a day on your own, you’ll be less afraid of taking risks with your life. This means if your trying to land a raise or a promotion, you won’t be worried about walking out the door if your boss hands you that 2% raise that you didn’t ask for.

Declaring independence is the key to developing the valuable charisma necessary to become a leader. A big part of that is knowing that you can go it alone if you need to.

This way if someone tells you to sit down and shut up, you can tell them to shove it.

You have the keys to becoming an independent freedom fighter now.

Now you can support yourself, pay your readers, and make a difference.

With that in mind, let’s go change the world. Will you join me?

–

If you learned something from this, I’d love it if you could help share it with someone who it will help. Know someone trapped at a desk? Send this to them. If you use Twitter or Facebook, ‘liking’ this or retweeting it would be awesome.

Sharing is the only way my work reaches new readers. Thank you!

Written by Everett Bogue | Follow me on Twitter.

A lot of people don’t know what’s going on, so I thought I might try and convey it to you.

The Internet killed the Gatekeepers and made it possible to connect with anyone anywhere in the world.

This enabled like-minded individuals to speak to each other across all borders effortlessly, without censorship.

So, for the first time in the history of the human race, the people who actually get it — the ones who are awake,– are able to organize themselves to save the future of the human race.

Ideas don’t come from the individual, they come from the formation of a collective. I’m just funneling the ideas of my collective whole, and you are to pass them on. There are no boundaries for ideas.

If you want to see evidence of the above statement, check out Chris Anderson of TED’s latest talk. Technology is accelerating innovation.

The good ideas spread, the bad ideas die.

This feedback loop is accelerating toward escape velocity.

In the near future…

We will end poverty (both the 5-bedroom 2-car TV-enslavement in the 1st world and the we-can’t-eat in the 3rd)

Will will destroy the corporations that led us to this place of advertising enslavement.

We will recognize that we’re in this together. We brought us to this place, and we will take us to the future.

We will find freedom and also harmony for all. Across all borders, ideals, and end all conflicts.

This is why minimalism is blowing up right now, because it is the truth, because it brings about freedom for all.

This has been tried before, but before we didn’t have the tools without boundaries.

They can’t stop us now.

Are you alive? Prove it.

Written by Everett Bogue | Follow me on Twitter.

“There are no strangers here: Only friends you haven’t yet met.” -William Butler Yeats

Every once in awhile someone writes a blog post saying that the biggest downside of being location independent is because it’s so hard to meet new friends in new places.

They say “Man, I really wish I was location independent, but I’ll leave behind all of the cool people I know in Kansas.”

This is true. Sometimes it can be hard to meet people in new places.

Meeting people is hard, but it doesn’t have to be impossible.

How to meet people when you’re location independent.

Over the last year I’ve reduced my stuff to somewhere less than 100 things (some say 57), learned how to live and work from anywhere, and relocated to a bunch of new cities.

Every time I move I have no problem establishing a social network of remarkable people within a short amount of time.

I realize that some people have trouble doing this, so maybe this article can help you learn how to meet new people easily when you’re vagabonding around the world running a minimalist business while living with less.

These tips can probably apply if you’re location independent or just trying to find new friends outside of your normal circles. So no worries if you’re not location independent yet, you still might learn something from this!

If you’re really into networking, one of the best e-books I ever read on the subject was Colin Wright’s Networking Awesomely. It isn’t for everyone, but Colin has experience establishing networks on 4 continents, so might be worth checking out (or maybe just subscribe to Colin’s blog for now.)

Here are 10 strategies I’ve developed for meeting remarkable people:

1. You can’t be friends with everyone.

First, recognize that a person who tries to be friends with everyone ends up being friends with no one. The best networkers realize that they won’t be able to connect with most people, so instead focus their attention on people they can connect with. This means, if you there’s no magic, then you need to drop it immediately and try to connect with the next person.

For example, I have a terrible time being friends with boring people who don’t do anything with their lives. Their eyes just glaze over when I tell them I don’t have a TV and haven’t watched Entourage lately. So, I move on to people who actually do something with their lives.

2. Discover something to do every day.

You need a social hobby. Preferably something that involves exercise. For example, I go to Yoga almost every day at the same time. This means after a few weeks I started connecting with regulars who also have a lot of free time to live remarkable lives.

I also invite everyone to come join me at Yoga on Facebook and Twitter every single day. You can too. Yoga to the People is really for everyone. That’s why I go.

If you’re stumped as to what a social hobby is, here are some examples: any dance form, playing guitar, martial arts, running, rock climbing, writing workshops, dance parties, cooking. Almost everyone has one of these as a focus in their life.

If your hobby is watching movies alone in your house, chances are you’ll have trouble meeting people as a location independent freedom fighter. Change it up and join a film collective near your new location or something, so you can watch movies with other people.

3. You need a common interest.

The best people to connect with are people who are very similar to you. This is why I always go to Yoga every day at 4pm instead of 6pm. The people who do Yoga at 4pm have a much higher chance of being location independent artists and people living unconventional lives as freelancers. At 6pm the day-job crowd comes in, and my compatibility with people’s values decreases exponentially.

Think about all of the best friends you’ve had in the past? All of mine have been dancers, filmmakers, photographers, success junkies, bloggers, yoga practitioners, and my ultimate friends all watched Battlestar Galactica obsessively.

Finding new friends means admitting that you need to meet people who are similar to you. If they aren’t similar, you start talking about the weather, everyone gets bored and you aren’t helping anyone.

This is also why you always have a party every time you’re staying in a Hostel. Because you can all connect around the common experience of being a traveller.

4. Use existing infrastructure.

I talk about this strategy in Minimalist Business in relation to building a business. One of the biggest obstacles is quite simple, and easily avoided: a lot of people try to re-invent the lightbulb instead of just flipping it on.

You see, we live in the modern age, and yet so many people insist on not entering it. Let me cut to the chase: 80% of people meet new people over the Internet. Why? Because it’s easier than interrupting people who might already have plenty of friends on the street asking if you can hang out. People on the Internet looking for friends on the Internet generally want new friends, and thus are much easier to become friends with them.

So don’t be afraid to use Gmail, Twitter, Facebook, or even OkCupid to find people in your new city to meet.

Don’t leave friendship to chance, or you’ll be wandering alone for a very long time. Use existing infrastructure in order to establish local relationships that last for a very long time.

5. Value real relationships.

I’d rather have a couple of really good friends in every city than hundreds who barely know me. Don’t focus on meeting everyone. Meet a few people that you click with and build from there. Maybe you only need to meet 5 people before you find one with an existing social circle that extends across the entire city.

I always think about The Tipping Point, where Gladwell stated most people can manage only 150 real connections. However, some super-people end up being connectors that know just about everyone. Every good social circle has a few connectors that introduce everyone and basically lead the party. Find these people, they will introduce you to everyone.

6. Live with people.

Still stuck at home? Don’t live by yourself. Yes, living with people is more difficult, and sometimes the dishes don’t get done. But if you’re moving to new cities this is a great way to step into a social network that already exists. I did this by moving into a cool house in Portland. Right now I’m living alone, and yes, it’s a little more challenging, but that’s one of the reasons why I go to Yoga every day.

7. Have no expectations.

It can be really hard to find friends if you really really need to find friends. Be okay with being alone, and let things happen. Don’t be running around asking everyone on the street ‘will you be my friend’ ‘will you be my friend?’ No one wants to be friends with you if you’re like that. Instead focus on what kind of value you can add to the lives of others when they come in contact with you.

8. Go it alone.

It’s really hard to meet people if you’re always with an entourage. Chances are, if you’re always hanging out with your best buddy, you’ll never find new ones. Be okay with being alone. Meet people without dragging your friends with you. This will make it much easier to connect and listen to the new people you’re meeting.

9. Leave your house.

This is obvious, but if you stay in doors refreshing Twitter all day, you’ll never meet new people. Instead get outside! For example, last Saturday I ran into two of my old roommates from New York randomly in Delores Park as I was walking to Yoga, then after Yoga I ran into Corbett Barr on the street who invited me over to his place for a beer and to meet his dog. This doesn’t happen when you stay at home. This is why I spend most of my day wandering around looking for adventures.

10. Be open to adventures.

If you start every relationship with ‘I’d really love to meet up, but I can’t until next Tuesday at 12 noon because I have an really obsessive e-mail checking schedule’ you’re not going to make many friends.

The value of being location independent is that you can also have an open schedule. If someone calls, just say ‘yah, why not now?’ For example, my old roommate Bianca just got back into town and Facebooked me because she was bored. I wasn’t doing anything either (or anything I couldn’t do later), so I said ‘let’s go hang out in the park!’ And then a wild adventure started that ended when I had to get back on the BART to avoid turning into a pumpkin.

Don’t afraid to jump on the back of motorcycles if the opportunity should present itself. You might just end up on the top of a hill overlooking San Francisco at dusk five hours later. Yes, you didn’t KNOW you’d be there.

This is what living the moment is, you can’t plan everything. Planning nothing is usually a way better way to engage with the world.

Just be open, and let the relationships come to you.

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That being said, I’d like to meet you! If you’re in the Bay area, give me a shout. I go to Yoga to the People every day in San Francisco, so join me there. Or, grab a coffee at Ritual before or a beer after. Just give me a shout on email or Twitter.

Written by Everett Bogue | Follow me on Twitter.

People keep on bringing up Infinite Jest when they talk about my work, which kind of scares me.

This probably has to do with flying too close to the sun, but whatever. Someone has to do it, or else all of you will keep sitting in front of your TVs wasting away.

Anyway, enough about that. I’m going to make this post short and sweet.

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A few years ago, when I was living in a loft with ten people, one of my roommates moved out and left a lot of crap behind.

A few days later they found him dead on the roof of a New York City bar. He’d overdosed on some sort of drug he shouldn’t have been doing.

For the next few years, his crap sat around in boxes in our a workshop — a frustrating reminder of a person that no longer existed.

Every time we thought about getting rid of it, someone would say “but maybe someone wants it.” And they’d make a half-hearted attempt to contact someone who maybe cared about this guy’s crap.

No one cared.

They still don’t. The crap is probably still sitting in boxes inside The Schoolhouse waiting for someone who will never come to pick it up.

To make it worse, I didn’t even really like the guy that much.

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I guess this blog just came about because I realized that the only way people would remember me was if I changed the world.

This blog isn’t about living and working from anywhere. It’s about remembering why the frak you’re on this planet every single day.

What are you doing? Nothing? How can you stand that?

You’re here to try to change the world, if you don’t no one will remember you when you’re gone.
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A few weeks ago my girlfriend and I broke up.

It isn’t easy having a location independent boyfriend.

Sticking around while someone continues to try to change the world day after day after day gets old after awhile. We were headed in different directions.

Wendy couldn’t stay in Neverland forever.

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I’ve decided that working 2 hours a day is overrated.

Yes, it was fun figuring out how to do it, but eventually you realize that the other 22 hours in a day could be dedicated to changing the world. So, why not start doing that instead?

I’ll be launching something in the next few weeks that will change the worlds of a few people who want to work less and change more. I’ll give you a shout, and you’ll have an opportunity to join.

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I’ve decided to enroll in Yoga teacher training here in San Francisco. I’ve been practicing Yoga for over three years at a place called Yoga to the People, and I now is the time to deepen that practice.

So I’ll be staying in San Francisco at least until the end of the year, practicing.

I’ve been going to Yoga almost every day. It keeps me balanced. It keeps me healthy. It keeps me from ending up on a roof.

Yoga is the single most important element in my life.

And I want to help bring that decisive element into the lives of others.

That’s why I keep tweeting “come to Yoga with me, it’s for everyone.”

Because it is for everyone, the mantra of Yoga to the People exemplifies this.

I’ve been there while a fat lady did Yoga next to Drew Barrymore and Mary Kate Olson, and they were equals.

The yoga practice brought them closer together.

Yoga might even save the world, because…

Everyone’s in everyone.

If you want to join me, you’re welcome to. I go almost every day a 4pm. I almost always give a shout on Twitter or Facebook when I’m going.

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The real point of everything is this:

No one is going to remember you because of the junk you bought. They might even keep it in boxes for infinite years while they debate whether anyone cares (they don’t.)

What they’ll remember is the work that you did to try and change the world.

Most people don’t realize that we started with the destruction of the planet, and every day thus forth has been dedicated to fighting to reclaim what we’ve lost.

As some of you know, Starbuck led Lee to Earth, then she disappeared. Despite that, no one will forget her, ever.

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My point is this:

If you’re not waking up every single day and trying to be a leader…

If you’re not waking up every single day and trying to make work that matters…

If you’re not waking up every single day and trying to start a dance party…

…no one is going to care.

That’s just one more day wasted in front of the TV or driving your stupid people wheel pod.

You can do better than that.

Written by Everett Bogue | Follow me on Twitter.

The hardest day in the world is the one when you realize that you’re a leader.

When you stand up in front of a group of people (or tweet, because that works better) and say something that matters.

Like: You need to stop buying stupid crap that doesn’t matter.

You need to say things that matter.

You need to stop checking your email 456,432 times a day.

Etc, your own message will vary.

The reality of the situation is that the day you realize you’re a leader is every day after that first day. When you wake up in the morning and realize you can change the world in a small way. That’s freakin’ overwhelming. Sometimes it makes me want to just wake up and pour a gin and tonic and just not do anything all day.

But that’s what everyone does, except you.

Everyone wakes up, realizes they have the capability to be an extraordinary and unconventional individual, and then they go back to sleep and forget. Every single day.

Only a few people, like Danielle Laporte, Jeffrey F. Tang, Chris Guillebeau, etc. Wake up every day and realize their soul mission (yes, soul) in life is to inspire people to be leaders. To speak the truth that matters. To make this world a better place. Because if you don’t, who will?

Right now I’m struggling with the reality of the situation that the business that I started with a sheer act of FAITH will with some miracle of whatever break $100,000 before it’s one year old.

Yes, breaking 6-figures telling people to stop buying crap (or how to sell your crap, like Man Vs Debt) is a lot scarier than working at Starbucks for the rest of your life. But someone has to do it, and it might as well be you too.

So, I challenge you. When you wake up tomorrow, step up and start creating a movement.

I wrote about creating movements before, and then slowly that work fell by the wayside. Creating a movement is NOT a rest stop on the freeway. It is the sole reason that we are on this planet.

So, I challenge you. When you wake up tomorrow, step up and start being a leader.

Read a book that will make you think about your potential.

Take a yoga practice.

Go live on a boat, Julien.

Say one thing that matters. One thing isn’t too hard, right?

Destroy your TV and leave your house and never go back, because this is life. We’re living it, and every fraking second we’re dying it too.

The only thing that you can do is to fundamentally change the way that other people are living.

One idea can change the planet. I know this. I feel this. You feel it too.

This message is meant to wake you up, so you never go to sleep again. I realize that most of you probably will. That’s okay too. But you’ve heard this music before, and you remember that one time when you were five and you stood up on that stage and said something that people frowned at you for. And then you learned that you should never say things that challenge people again.

You are not the next X years after that moment. You are now. You are able to change everything with one idea, one thought, one moment when you choose to stand up and make a difference in the reality of the entire human race.

Yes, that’s hard. Yes it’s the hardest thing you will ever do.

But if you don’t do it, who will?

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Chris Guillebeau’s book The Art of Non-Conformity came out today, it’s only like $8 on Amazon and comes in real book form. You might remember me recommending his Empire Builder Kit, and The Unconventional Guide to Working for Yourself before.

Yes, once you read it you can never go back. But does that matter? No. Because going back is for everyone else. Not you. Not this time.

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This isn’t the TV, not everyone sits in front of it all day. The only way this message reaches other people is if you share it. Facebook and Twitter are a good place to start, but there are a million and one ways. Print it out and post it on a wall if you have to.

I don’t really need to say much about Tammy Strobel, because I’m sure you all already know her.

Tammy runs the super-popular small living blog Rowdy Kittens. She was recently featured in not just The New York Times, but also MSNBC.com, Yahoo Finance, and a bunch of other places. Why? Because she’s one of the pioneers of the minimalist movement that is changing the foundations of our society.

Tammy just released an amazing digital work: Smalltopia: A Practical Guide to Working for Yourself.

I was lucky enough to still be able to interview her after all of her recent media coverage.

I’ve read the e-book from start to finish, and it is one of the more remarkable guides to self-employment that I’ve read this year. I’m not going to say anymore, and let the interview with Tammy do the talking. I even contributed a small bit on my own experience creating a minimalist business.

On to the interview! We spoke about developing multiple streams of income, quitting your day job, and how simplicity is the ultimate freedom:

Everett: For our readers who haven’t been following your exploits religiously on your blog, Rowdykittens, can you briefly describe what a Smalltopia is?

Tammy: Smalltopia is a practical guide to working for yourself. The guide reviews tips, tools, and strategies that will help folks leave a traditional 9-5 job and create personal freedom through a very small business. The guide is broken up into three sections: Smalltopia Philosophy, Smalltopia Essentials, and Smalltopia Case Studies.

The part I’m most excited about is the case study section. It features stories from more than a dozen folks that run the gamut of experience. From those who are just getting ready to break up with their day job, to crazy successful small business owners. The list of rockstar contributors include: Leo Babauta, Chris Guillebeau, Jessica Reeder, Chris O’Byrne, Russ Roca, Laura Crawford, Karol Gajda, Chloe Adeline, Victoria Vargas, Karen Yaeger, Jules Clancy, Heather Levin, Matt Cheuvront, Tyler Tervooren, and the one and only Everett Bogue!

Everett: Imagine I’m the average reader of Far Beyond The Stars, why would I want to create a Smalltopia?

Tammy: You said in a recent blog post that Far Beyond the Stars is about one very specific thing, freedom. Creating your own Smalltopia will give you the structure to live life on your own terms and the freedom to pursue your dreams.

Everett: You recently quit your job in order to build your own very small business. Why did you decide that working for other people wasn’t what you were into?

Tammy: During the past ten years, I spent time working in the investment management industry and then transitioned into the social service sector. I learned a lot in both of these fields, but working for someone else wasn’t fulfilling.

I love working with others, but I disliked the rigid routines and unequal ranking of people in traditional office environments. And spending over 40 hours a week trapped indoors was starting to make me feel crazy. I wanted the freedom to be able to work on projects that made me happy, and more importantly, I wanted the freedom to choose when, where, and with whom I wanted to work with.

Everett: In Smalltopia you talk about the importance of diversifying your “moolah”. Most people have all of their income coming from one source, which obviously means if you lose that job you’re sunk. How important is it to have multiple streams of income?

Tammy: I believe having multiple streams of income is essential to financial security. For example, my income streams currently come from freelance writing projects, books sales, consulting, and some web design work. For instance, if my book sales decrease one month, I can easily take on more freelance writing projects and adapt accordingly.

Like you said, if you’re laid off from a “traditional job” you’re stuck with no income stream. So in reality, I don’t think traditional jobs are very safe. It’s a myth that many of us (including myself) buy into. The generation of folks working for one company and building a pension is fading away. The collapse of Enron and recent bankruptcy of many financial management corporations demonstrate the illusion of “stable” income. Everything changes with time so it’s better to build a diverse and dynamic income model.

Everett: How has living a small lifestyle allowed you to focus on creating multiple income sources?

Tammy: Living a small lifestyle has reduced my expenses tremendously. I can afford to gamble on “risky” opportunities to develop more markets for my work. Now that I’m not shopping so much or constantly worrying about maintaining my stuff, I have the time and energy to focus on a variety of projects.

Everett: How has living a minimalist life contributed towards building your successful Smalltopia?

Tammy: Minimalism allows me the freedom and focus to pursue projects I’m passionate about which makes a huge difference in the quality of work I’m producing. Being happy and motivated comes through in my work and has contributed to a greater success in my business

In addition, I have the time to build relationships with people. And that is critically important to creating a resilient business.

Everett: What is one action that our readers can take towards moving towards building a Smalltopia of their own?

Tammy: Well you only asked for one action, but I’m going to give our readers two tips.

First, get your finances together and pay of any outstanding debts. This is essential because it will give you a lot of freedom and flexibility in the long run. Make sure you prioritize paying off your debt by setting aside part of each paycheck. Little by little your debt will decrease and you’ll have more freedom to do what you love.

Second, start a blog. Blogging is an incredible way to connect with like minded individuals, the perfect place to test business ideas, and build a fan base. For instance, all of my freelance writing contracts and books sales have occurred because RowdyKittens. Without a home base on the Internet, building a small small business can be difficult.

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You can check out Tammy Strobel’s new e-book Smalltopia: A Practical Guide to Working for Yourself here.

For the last 50 years we woke up, flipped on the TV, and saw what they wanted us to believe.

The American Dream was always a lie, it just took us awhile to figure that out.

If we’d just buy one more car, got a bigger house, or upgraded our surround sound system, we’d finally be happy. We watched hundreds of sitcom families shopping for new designer digs and we thought to ourselves ‘I deserve that too.’

Then we went out and bought so much more than we could ever afford. And you know what? That was just fine for the corporations, because they made money. And the banks, because they made money. So they loaned you all of the money you ever wanted to buy whatever it was you saw on TV.

Was it fine for you? No, because now you’re stuck in debt and living the sedentary lifestyle.

When you have it all, you can’t be free too.

Every item that you add to your inventory of useless junk in your closet or the 2nd half of your two-car garage actually contradicts your ability to achieve the true American Dream.

The American Dream changed, the new definition is freedom.

How do you achieve the new American Dream? Realize that buying more isn’t the answer. Burn your TV (or throw it out the window.)

Stand up from your couch and never sit down again, because this freedom is real, and you can’t buy it at Walmart.

Declare independence and start to realize that how you experience the world is the real dream.

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This was my contribution to Karol Gajda’s newly released right-on manifesto titled The American Dream is Dead (Long Live the American Dream!)

Karol asked 25 incredible people, including heroes of mine such as Derek Sivers, Chris Brogan, Leo Babauta and a whole bunch of others. Check it out.

Written by Everett Bogue | Follow me on Twitter.

We sometimes forget why we’re here, we aren’t looking where we’re going, or even where we’ve been.

We get all caught up in an idea about what we should be doing, and forget about what we really want to do.

I think what we want to do is to be free.

Instead we’re told by society that we’re supposed to buy a new car. We’re supposed to get our hair done a specific way. We’re supposed to go to college. We’re supposed to work all day and still somehow we’re in outrageous debt, and we wonder why.

There’s a weird misunderstanding about what simplicity actually is.

I get a lot of emails from people saying that they would never want to live this life.

For example, recently someone told me that the only reason they’d ever stop driving is if there was a mass extinction of the human race. I asked her why she was reading my blog if she was so opposed to everything it stands for.

The problem is, that I haven’t really defined what this blog is about, so it’s understandable that some people would be confused.

Far Beyond The Stars is about one very specific thing:

1. How to achieve freedom.

It’s not about skipping your coffee in the morning, it’s not about getting out of debt, it’s not about growing your food in your backyard, it’s not about checking yourself into the monastery on the corner and meditating 17 hours a day.

The origins of my simplification, and how it helps you.

I never intended to follow the set career path that society laid out for us. I didn’t go to high school, instead I took ballet and modern dance classes every day. I went to college to become an artist, and then hopefully at the end I secretly hoped that I would be inducted into the Legion of Extraordinary Dancers.

But it didn’t happen.

Instead I watched in horror as society crushed the dreams of every single artist friend I had. One by one every single one of them settled in some way for an outcome that wasn’t what they intended.

Slowly, one by one we didn’t make the audition for the dream that we’d always had.

Instead, we went out and got jobs at restaurants, we stayed in the basement of the university library, we did a good interview at a corporate job and got fat and lazy sitting at a desk all day.

Maybe in our spare time we kept working on our art, secretly hoping that we’d get a record deal or a publisher would pull us up by our bootstraps.

Seldom does Deux Ex Machina happen in real life though — the only person who can save you is you.

I believe this is actually everyone’s story. Some of us made it farther along the road than others, like we actually got into dance school or we had one show at CBGB’s on the Bowery with a packed house before it closed.

Eventually I gave up and settled for a job, because everyone else did.

Four years later I woke up and realized that I was missing the point, that somewhere along the way we all did, and this is why we failed.

The reality that was broken.

So every morning I woke up and took the subway into work. I sat at a desk and made other people’s stories look nice (meanwhile being told every time I pitched an idea that I’d never be a writer- HA, now who’s the more successful writer?) It was fun, we thought we were doing good work. I was paid just enough to survive, but it was never enough. My student loans just sat there accumulating interest.

But slowly on the fringes of my social radar, I noticed as one by one people started to drop off the radar. They said ‘fuck you’ to the corporations and started wandering the streets of America searching for the answer — what the tiny little voice in their back of their heads said.

“There must be a better way.”

What these people did, and what I did, was to radically refine our meaning of success.

We start to realize that the success that we thought we needed was implanted in our heads by the advertisers.

• Coca Cola wanted us to think success was sitting at the movies chugging cokes watching Tom Cruise dodge explosions.
• American Airlines wanted us to think of success as once a year taking an expensive flight to the caribbean.
• Nikon and Canon want you to believe that you’ll be a famous photographer if you just buy one more camera lens.
• The Bush administration wanted us to think success was not getting blown to bits by terrorists (which statistically is much lower than the fact that you have a 1 in 100 chance of being crushed by a car or flying through your Subaru’s windshield) while getting our permission to bomb the crap out of a foreign country in order to keep oil prices low.
• American Idol wanted us to think success was texting 1 to their magic number while we sat in our chairs and munched on Lean Cuisine.

You get the idea.

Meanwhile I saw one by one my friends wake up and realize it was all a big fake magic reality that we’d have if we just bought one more Budweiser in the Meatpacking District.

We were in The Matrix, and the only freedom was truly to opt out.

So I did, I destroyed all of my stuff, quit my job, and got off the grid permanently.

Far Beyond The Stars is about waking you up.

It’s about telling you that your reality is broken, and there is another option.

You didn’t make the choices you made because you wanted to, you did it because The Man Behind The Television told you (because he wants your money.)

The Internet gave us the tools to create this revolution in the way that we think. We no longer live in the illusion that buying one more video game will make us happier. We no longer believe that a fancy handbag will make us find love.

We no longer believe that success = Donald Trump.

Instead we’re slowing redefining freedom as a reality you can have right now, if you just stop consuming.

Destroy all of that crap the television told you to buy and never go to the mall again.

Because buying more isn’t the answer. Freedom is.

And that my friends, is what Far Beyond The Stars is about.

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Oh! And retweet this, because I can’t change reality by myself, I need you to join us in this movement, because we can make a difference.

P.S. I’m still on a digital sabbatical. That’s why commenting is off. I can’t answer your emails until I get back from the forest on August 23rd.

But don’t worry, I’m still posting work while I’m gone. That’s the magic of automation. Don’t miss out, sign up for free updates via EMAIL or RSS.