Far Beyond The Stars: The Archives

Why minimalism can keep your overhead low and your freedom high

Written by Everett Bogue | Follow me on Twitter.

One of the biggest challenges of minimalism, especially when you apply it to the idea of creating a minimalist business, is avoiding the inevitable pull and pressures to scale up your life expenses with the rise of your personal wealth.

There’s a good deal of pressure in society to spend more money. We congregate around malls in most parts of the country, there are advertisements to buy buy buy everywhere, there are endless luxuries that we’re told will make us happier.

Why spending more won’t make you happier.

Obviously if you’ve been following my writing for any amount of time, you know that I’m convinced that buying stuff doesn’t make you happier — it just tethers you location and consumes your income.

I originally discovered the idea of minimalism when I left my day job to pursue a location independent life. In order to do that, I had to figure out how to live on very limited resources.

I asked the question: how do I survive without money? Inevitably that lead to minimalism, which lead to living with less than 100 things and being able to live and work from anywhere.

However inevitable it might have been from the beginning, I never conceived of the idea that my income would reach the level that it has in such a short amount of time.

The dangers of income growth.

Once your minimalist business grows (and if you do the right things it will) you might discover the same challenge.

You’ll suddenly find yourself working less than 10 hours a week, and making more than you did at your day job.

When you don’t scale your income with your overhead, you suddenly produce a surplus of money which you can use to your advantage — say to get out of debt, retire early, or simply pursue the dreams that you’re passionate about.

That’s why I’ve prepared this list of 16 strategies to keep your life-overhead from scaling in direct proportion to your income. I hope this list can help you keep your spending low and your income high, whether you’ve successfully created a minimalist business, or you’re trying to leave your soul-sucking day job.

Here are 16 strategies to keep your overhead from scaling with your income:

1. Use free transportation.

One of the easiest and healthiest ways to keep your overhead low is to use free or inexpensive transportation. We live in a society where having a car is the norm, however cars are expensive, destructive, dirty, and anti-social. If you care about the state of the Gulf oil spill, I’d better not see you driving. The truth about the matter is that it’s fairly easy to live car-free by purchasing a bike, walking, or simply using public transportation.

2. Live in a place that’s walkable.

Not all cities are created equal. Places like Portland, OR. New York, and San Francisco are created in a way that you can obtain everything you need to survive by walking a couple of blocks. If you live in a city or the suburbs where sprawl is the norm, you’re keeping your overhead high by needing a car to obtain your groceries. Stop, think about where you’re living, and make the right choice in order to keep your overhead low.

3. Prepare your own food.

Eating out for every meal is costly, and also not healthy. Fast food, and even most restaurant food, is filled with stuff you don’t even want to know about, especially salt, fat, and processed sugar that metabolizes faster than our bodies can handle. If you prepare your own food out of whole ingredients such as vegetables, meats, beans and grains, you’ll both lose weight and save money. Shop the periphery of the supermarket, only buy unprocessed food. Jules just came out with a free minimalist cookbook that can help you with this.

4. Track your possessions.

Nothing can blow your overhead out of proportion like buying lots of junk you don’t need. The easiest way to keep your stuff under control is to commit to living with less than 100 personal possessions. I’ve been doing it long enough now that I wouldn’t even dream of living any other way, it’s just not practical to have to worry about lots of stuff everywhere.

5. Live in a smaller space.

One of the big fallacies of the American Dream is the McMansion that MTV convinced us we were supposed to buy. Having a big house with a huge yard and a two-car garage can or will blow your overhead out of proportion. Opt-out of this lie and rent a smaller space in a walkable area.

6. Avoid watching TV.

The television is designed with handy 5-minute breaks to convince you to buy an unrealistic amount of stuff that will quickly swell your overhead. If you ate all of the junk food that comes up in one hour of typical commercial breaks, you’d die. Avoid this situation by not being a passive consumer of mindless entertainment, destroy your TV and cancel your cable.

7. Avoid reading mass media.

Newspapers and magazines are created around the same advertising model, which is largely unsustainable — that’s why the newspaper and magazine industries are dying. If you look at your average fashion magazine, you’ll be convinced the only way to be cool is to spend $6000 on a handbag. This is absurd, you don’t five-hundred beauty products and sparkling gold jewels. All of this stuff was created to make other people rich and brain wash you into living a life with no meaning. Don’t read newspapers or magazines as most of them encourage consumption (and also kill trees.)

8. Establish a minimalist social circle.

Be careful who you hang around with. If your best friend’s idea of having fun is racking up credit card debt at the mall, you have a social circle problem. Cultivate relationships around less and encourage people you know to embrace minimalism, or find friends who already have. A great way to do this to share minimalist writing through your social networks like Facebook and Twitter in order to make it clear to people where your priorities lie. Invite friends over for dinner and enjoy good conversation over inexpensive home-prepared food instead of going to the movies or spending hundreds of dollars out at the bar.

9. Share resources.

We all done need everything that we’ve been told we do. Cars for instance are quickly becoming a shared commodity in most cities because of amazing resources like Zipcar. There are of course countless other ways to share resources. Join a tool lending library for when you need to create things (these exist Portland and Oakland, and if your cities doesn’t have one you should convince them it’s necessary.) Use Zikol to rent anything that you need ,or offer your own useful items for rent in your neighborhood. Consider setting up small neighborhood collectives to share things that you might not need on a regular basis. This is becoming easier with social networking and the rise of the Internet.

10. Pursue simple pleasures.

The idea that you have to spend money to be happy is absurd. Realize that simple things such as sitting at the beach, or on a bench at the park can be a free or inexpensive way to spend time. Cooking food can be a great way to get enjoyment and also pass the time. Read books about things that matter in order to improve your knowledge of the world and pass time. Lately I’ve been volunteering to crew sailboats on San Francisco bay, which is a free and helpful way to have an amazing day.

11. Use simple tools.

There are so many expensive gadgets and tools out there to buy. The pressure to upgrade to the latest and greatest nonsense is absurd. You don’t need five different ways to access the Internet, you only need one. You don’t need to invest in the top of the line gadget when you only need a simple tool to get the job done. Sometimes a simple pad of paper is the best way to get any job done.

12. Do less.

Walk slower, breathe oxygen, simply be content sitting and watching the trees sway back and forth. All of the endless and frantic running around won’t be remembered, it will just make you tired. When you slow down and do less, you begin to realize that everyone is doing way too much. Why work 60 hours a week when you can work 10? Why run to the grocery store when you can walk slowly? Walk slowly, breathe, do less.

13. Focus on the work that matters.

Not all work is created equal. A large number of people I know are caught up in routines that just spend lots of time, but aren’t creating any value. When you spend your time creating things that help people, and automating your distribution process, you can eventually spend a lot less time working and a lot more time enjoying your minimalist life. Eliminate all activities that aren’t creating value for you, or anyone else, and focus on the important.

14. Dedicate time to self-education over all else.

We’re taught that we need to be taught to learn things, I’ve found that the opposite is true. Self-education can be the most effective way to use your time. There are hundreds of free, or inexpensive resources that can help you learn a huge amount of information. If you’re wondering what to do with your life, don’t go buy a pizza and play video games. Instead, log on to TED and watch some of the world’s greatest minds talk about the ideas that they’re passionate about. Don’t spend $150,000 on a business degree when Empire Builder or a Personal MBA can give you the tools to create a very small business for a small fraction of that price. Resolve to read a book a week for the rest of your life — believe it or not simply reading give you the keys to creating your ideal reality.

15. Realize that you already have more than enough.

We’ve been living with so much more than we ever needed for generations. When you wake up and realize that advertising tricked you into consuming so much more than you ever needed, and that you can be content right here and now, you suddenly have the key to keeping your overhead low in order to prevent your life from scaling with your income. You don’t need anything else, everything you have now is enough.

16. Keep the end goal in mind.

The end is the beginning is the end. Don’t get distracted by meaningless pursuits by setting an end goal that has some meaning to you. Do you want to leave your soul-sucking day job in order to pursue a minimalist life and live and work from anywhere? Maybe you want to build a boat and sail all around the world? Maybe you just want to sit on your porch and read a good book.

There’s no reason that your end goal has to scale with your income. If it doesn’t scale, your income will skyrocket with no-relation to your spending, and freedom can become an inevitability.

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If this helped, you know the deal. Share it with people, it’s the only way my work finds new people it can help. Thanks!

Written by Everett Bogue | Follow me on Twitter.

“Too often, a vast collection of possessions ends up possessing its owner.” – Warren Buffett

The last few years were defined by credit cards, bank busts and ultimately bankruptcy for a lot of people.

The reason we got into this mess is simple: we all took too much, and no one told us we couldn’t.

The world exists on checks and balances, and a check without a balance isn’t a smart thing to write.

The solution to any debt problem is easily said than done, but I’ll go ahead and say it: to get out of debt you have to spend less. Easy, right? Well, not so much for many people.

I’ve been dealing with a hunkload of student debt since college. Right now the balance is a little under $15,000. When I lived my over-extended day job life, the idea of ever being able to pay this back was hard to comprehend.

Now that I apply minimalism to every action I take, digging through that debt seems like a much easier reality for me. I hope to pay it all back by the end of the year, and in order to do that I need solid strategies in place to repay the debt.

I think that if you apply minimalism, getting out of debt can be a reality for you as well.

How minimalism can help you get out of debt.

First I want to tell you the story of how I paid off all of my credit card debt (around $2,000) last month. But I have to start with how I had that debt in the first place: in March my computer exploded — the screen just died and it was a year out of warranty. This was a month after launching The Art of Being Minimalist, and while the e-book was paying for my minimalist lifestyle in New York, I wasn’t quite making enough to buy out of pocket a brand new Macbook Pro.

So I had to make a hard choice, one that I hated doing, I put the computer on my Discover card — this is one of the decisions that people have to make all of the time: at the time I had to pay the rent first and figure out how to pay off the computer later.

Here’s my solution for the credit card debt: to pay it off immediately all at once. After the pre-release of Minimalist Business I had more than enough to move to California and continue to pay for my minimalist lifestyle. So, I simply paid the $2,000 credit card debt off. Now I don’t have to worry about it anymore, because I paid it off.

This is where most people approach debt incorrectly. They let it sit there, and game credit card offers with zero-interest, swapping the balance back and forth between card providers but never really addressing the biggest issue: that they’re in debt and they need to get out.

The best approach is to sacrifice your immediate desire to splurge and instead kill that debt now, so you can live a freer life in the future.

There are no good kinds of debt.

When you’re living a freedom lifestyle, there are no good forms of debt. Your education, your mortgage, and especially your consumer debt is all debt you shouldn’t have.

Why? Because debt weighs you down.

It’s a lot harder to make good decisions in regard to your freedom if you’re worried about $15,000 in debt from your education. It’s nearly impossible to make good choices if you’re $900,000 in debt on a house.

You’re never going to live a location independent life if you’re paying into the debt trap.

I realize this is hard to hear, we’ve been brought up on this sick idea of an American dream that was dreamt up by McDonald’s and Walmart to keep the American population buying crap to fill their oversized homes and bodies.

You don’t need anything enough that you should be willing to go into that much debt over it.

Well, enough about the problem, let’s look at some solutions.

Here are 7 strategies you can use to apply simplicity in order to get out of debt.

1. Reduce overhead by adopting a minimalist lifestyle.

The first element to eliminating debt by applying minimalism is to figure out your actual cost of living and attempt to reduce the cost to under a certain threshold.

The best way that I’ve found to do this is to only give yourself a certain amount of money to spend every month on your life. Some people call this a budget, I call it dealing with reality. If your life only costs $1,500 a month, and you’re making $5,000 a month, then you can put $3,500 a month towards paying down your debt.

A few practical strategies for reducing your overhead I’ve talked about many times: create a 30-day wait-list for purchases larger than $20 (other than groceries). Live with less than 100 things. Sell your crap to make extra money. Live in a smaller apartment.

If you continue to spend $5,000 a month when you make $5,000 a month, you’ll never pay down your debt. Yes, that’s very simple, and yet so many people don’t get it.

You need much less than you think. Eliminate overhead to dig yourself out of debt.

2. Pay off the most emotional balances first.

I subscribe to Adam Baker’s Debt Tsunami approach, as outlined in his e-book Unautomate Your Finances, to paying down debts. This is why my temporary credit card debt had to be the first to go, because it was keeping me awake at night.

Baker’s Debt Tsunami approach recognizes that some unpaid balances are more emotional than others. For instance, if you owe money to your family chances are that the unpaid balance is creating a lot more of a strain than how much you owe Citibank on your student loan. Pay your family back first, then move on to less emotional outstanding balances.

It doesn’t matter if the $1,000 your buddy owed you is interest-free. Pay it back first, because your buddy deserves the money back. The banks can wait, save your relationships first.

3. Don’t buy a car (sell yours if you did.)

One of the funniest (funny because people are silly) mistakes that I see people make is simple: they rack up a huge debt in college, then they graduated and immediately rush to the car dealership to put zero-down on a car they can’t afford.

Cars are destructive, dirty, expensive, time-consuming, and they’re also one of the easiest ways to save $8,000+ a year. Simply don’t buy one, or sell the one you have, and you’ll free up a huge portion of your finances that you didn’t even realize that you could have.

People don’t take the entire cost of a car into account when they buy one. They simply look at how much the car payment will be a month, without taking into account the cost of insurance, gas, repairs, parking fines, etc. These all quickly stack up to an unsustainable life.

Living without a car is so simple that I’ve been doing it for the last 8 years: move to a place where you don’t need one. Believe it or not, there are cities and towns in America where you can walk to get your groceries. Brooklyn, Portland, San Francisco, etc. I’ve lived in all of these places, and they’re all wonderful places to live car-free.

Someday we’ll live in a car-free world, and believe me, it will be a better place.

If you do need a car in these places, you can rent one for $6-$11 an hour with gas included by joining Zipcar.

4. Establish a repayment plan.

Debt isn’t going to repay itself, you need to establish a plan to pay back the debt you have.

I normally hate planning, but with money you have to establish a threshold that you’re going to put towards your outstanding debts or you’ll never pay back the balance.

Paying the minimum due each month isn’t a plan, it’s a way to keep yourself perpetually in debt.

Once you’ve established how much your life costs, and reduced your overhead through minimalism, you can move to the next step of dedicating large amounts of money to paying off your debts.

I suggest dedicating anywhere from $500-$2000 a month towards paying down debts until they’re completely eliminated — this is the strategy I’m using at the moment and it’s going a long way towards getting me to the point of living debt free by the end of the year.

As we discussed above, pay the minimum on every account except for the one that’s causing you the most emotional strife. Throw the large sums of money at one outstanding debt until you’ve completely paid it off, and then start on the next. This way you’ll see real change that you wouldn’t if you evenly distributed money across all debts at once.

5. Stop using credit cards.

Credit cards can be necessary in tough situations (like when your Macbook explodes), but in most others you shouldn’t need one.

Credit cards turn money into an abstract idea. It’s not real money, it’s just the credit card. The reality of the situation is that using credit cards is spending real money that you don’t have already.

One of the best ways that I’ve found to opt-out of monetary abstraction is to stop using credit cards entirely. Cut them up and never use them again. Take physical cash out of the bank and use it to make purchases until you’re out of debt.

It’s much more difficult to drop $500 on something you don’t need when you’re paying with a big wad of cash.

6. Establish additional revenue streams.

One of the best ways to pay down debt, believe it or not, is to make more money. The best way to do this, in my experience, is to establish new (and ideally passive) revenue streams.

Create remarkable products around work that you’re passionate about, take on more clients, build resources that help people, etc.

Many people work one job, and have one mostly steady income source. The problem with this is that you don’t have the opportunity in most cases to work harder in order to make more money. You can’t leverage your skills in a day job to create passive income either — all of the extra money you make goes to your company and not your own paycheck.

I recently started to realize that money was just a symbol for the value that you contribute to the world. When you make change and help people, more money will come, if you make the decision to ask for it.

When you make more money, you can pay down your debts faster.

7. Buying things won’t make you happy.

The final element to this whole equation is realizing that buying more things will never make you happy.

The televisions taught us to rush to the mall every time a new gadget comes out. Millions of people wander around clothing stores hoping that buying one more pair of shoes will cure all of their problems. The reality of the situation is that buying more junk just makes us sadder after a temporary high that comes from spending money.

When you opt-out of the endless cycle of consumerism, you free yourself to pay down your debts and eventually live a minimalist freedom lifestyle.

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Maren Kate of Escaping the 9-5 interviewed me about minimalist business strategies for success.

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If this article helped you, I’d love if you could take ten seconds and hit the retweet button or Stumble this article. Thank you!

The secret is giving the work that helps people accomplish their goals.

Written by Everett Bogue | Follow me on Twitter.

This is the second part in the series leading up to the re-release of Minimalist Business on June 15th at 10am PST. The first part was on paying your fans to support you. Don’t miss out on release day, sign up for free updates via email or RSS.

The most important strategy that a minimalist businessperson can employ is simply helping people achieve their goals.

We all subsist on valuable information, and yet it’s so difficult to find in this world. There’s so much fluff, and McDonald’s-chicken-nugget-type info that’s meant to be consumed but not used to better yourself.

When you make the conscious decision to become a filter for other people’s reality, in order to cut out all of the crap that doesn’t matter, you can support yourself by supporting work that matters.

Here’s the not so shocking truth about how I made an additional $2,300 in one day for my minimalist business last month: I simply dropped an affiliate link to Chris Guillebeau’s Empire Builder Kit in the bottom of my blog post on the day that it relaunched.

Here’s the exact text I used:

“If you’re interested. My friend Chris Guillebeau is re-launching his Empire Builder Kit for a second time today (May 18th 2010 from 10am EST until May 19th at 10am EST) for 24 hours only.

The premise is simple: case studies including actual monetary figures by people running very small businesses who make tons of cash a year. In addition to that, you receive one email a day (that’s 365 tips!) that will help you build a business destined for world domination in at least one year.”

As you can see, it was nothing much. The quality of Chris’s work speaks for itself.

From what I’ve heard from colleagues, a number of other bloggers with relatively small followings (in the 1000-3000 subscriber range) were able to pull commissions in the quad-digits as well.

Why Empire Builder?

The case seems obvious, to me. The guide is jam-packed with information on how to create what Chris calls an Empire — essentially a very small business based around the work that you’re passionate about.

Add on top of this an entire year worth of content that’s pumped to your inbox daily, and you can see that the investment goes way above and beyond the actual price you’re paying for it.

I don’t really need to say anymore about Chris’s work, you get the idea how valuable this is.

Anyone who purchased Empire Builder should also be affiliating for it (you can join Chris’s affiliate program here,) why not put the word out there and pay back your purchase investment with two sales? This is the magic of digital distribution.

Note: The Empire Builder Kit isn’t available right now, but will be relaunched again next week [UPDATE: Empire Builder is now available for the foreseeable future.]

Why supporting quality work can support you.

The reason I was able to pull such a large figure on one product in one day is simple:

1. Build trust. The reason that I’m able to pull big numbers like this is because I’ve build trust with my supporters. They know I’m not going to throw them expensive garbage, and if I did that would burn away my support. Share only the work that creates value for your readers, and they will support you.

2. Show the benefits. Don’t tell, show your readers how the investment paid off for you. What did you learn? What surprised you? What completely blew your mind? Don’t sell crap that doesn’t blow your mind.

3. Make it clear that this isn’t for everyone. Not everyone is going to support you with money. Not everyone is supporting you will have the same interests or needs as everyone else. Some people need one product that helps them, others will need another. Don’t force things down people’s throats, simply suggest they check it out and purchase it if they think it will help them.

The story of Minimalist Business launch day.

On Tuesday, June 15th at 10am PST, I’ll be relaunching Minimalist Business for the second time, and after that it will be available for anyone to purchase for the indefinite future.

I’m not making a big deal promoting this launch, because I think the quality of the work speaks for itself.

You won’t see me frantically tweeting messages urging people to buy it. I won’t be sending promo copies to big name bloggers begging for them to put up a link. I don’t work that way, because I don’t think it’s necessary.

I’m just going to put a blog post up with information on how to purchase it, if you want it. The rest will happen naturally, because the value of the work speaks for itself.

Here’s what’s going to go down on Tuesday June 15th at 10am PST:

1. Minimalist Business will be available for 24 hours at the original discounted price ($27-$37).

Many people missed out on the initial launch. I received a barrage of emails from people who missed the deadline. I don’t want these people to be left out from the discounted price, so I’ve decided to keep the price low for 24 hours for the people who have been anxiously waiting to purchase the work.

Once the 24 hour period is over the prices will go up to $37-$47. Follow me on Twitter for up-to-date info on the launch.

2. Minimalist Business will be open for all affiliates as of now.

Anyone can join the affiliate program. Many of you already have joined, if you have been supporting yourself with The Art of Being Minimalist.

Click here to join my affiliate program, all you need is a free account through e-junkie, a paypal address to receive money, and a media outlet such as a blog or a newsletter on which to publish a link.

Affiliate links count towards sales of The Art of Being Minimalist and Minimalist Business. You’ll receive 50% commission on every sale.

Copy the URLs of the images to the right if you need art to represent the work (such as in your blog sidebar.)

I definitely suggest actually purchasing the guide, so you can authentically tell people what it’s about. It’s not an absolute must, but actually reading the work will help you tell your fans how to support you better.

Consider writing a review about how the guide has helped you, invite me to do an interview on your blog (it may take a few days for me to get back on an interview request, but this can be a powerful way to communicate value,) or simply drop a link saying that your readers should check it out — you’d be surprised how much power one simple line with a link can have.

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Thank you so much for your help, and for reading this. If you have any questions about the launch, feel free to leave a comment and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.

Definitely drop me an email (evbogue at gmail dot com) if you need anything (forgive if it takes up to a day to respond, I’ll inevitably be receiving a lot emails over the next week.)

Sign up for free updates via email, RSS, or follow me on Twitter to be sure that you don’t miss the discounted price on launch day.

Create a zero-overhead simple business to support your freedom lifestyle

Written by Everett Bogue | Follow me on Twitter.

A brief history of being minimalist.

In September of last year I quit my job, and hopped on a plane to Portland Oregon in search of freedom. In order to survive, I had to make a choice that many people are having to make in this economy:

I had to embrace minimalism in order to pursue what was important to me.

I started living with less than 100 things, biked and walked everywhere, survived on less than $3,000 for three months, and practiced time management techniques to spend less time doing work and more time making work that matters.

In February of this year I launched The Art of Being Minimalist, a little e-book with a powerful message: what would you be able to accomplish if you lived with less?

What really surprised me, is that a little e-book about being minimalist could completely support my lifestyle. I could move anywhere (and I did, traveling from Portland to Chicago to New York and then relocating to San Francisco last month at limited expense.) I also didn’t need to have a day job, which was the most important element for me.

These reasons form the basis for the work I’ve put into Minimalist Business:

1. Your business doesn’t need to cost as much as you think.
2. If you opt-out of physical media and avoid gatekeepers, you can keep 50-100% of your profits.
3. If choose to automate your business, you can create passive income, which means you don’t have to work so much anymore either.

The number one reason for creating Minimalist Business is to help you create one too.

When I started writing about the success I was having with my minimalist business, I began receiving a flood of emails asking me how I was able to do it. The problem with answering emails is that it only helps one person, and the strategy isn’t scalable.

I hope Minimalist Business answers any questions you have about creating a zero-overhead business to support your minimalist lifestyle anywhere in the world.

Why create a minimalist business?

We live in interesting times. The economy still hasn’t recovered from the greatest recession since the great depression. This means that there aren’t a lot of fulfilling job opportunities out there anymore.

People (like Jeffrey F. Tang) are waking up and realizing that in order to create a fulfilling job, they have to design that life for themselves.

We have to change the way we create businesses, and how we do important work, if we are going to design lives that are worth living.

Job security in the modern economy is a myth that we’ve been taught to accept by corporations who are forced to only care about the bottom line because of endless bureaucracy. People are beginning to realize that the best job security is the work you create to support yourself.

A minimalist business can help you achieve what Chris Brogan likes to call “escape velocity” and enable you to build recurring income outside of your day job in order to free yourself.

Or you can just jump head-first like I did, live with less, and do the work that matters.

Why Minimalist Business isn’t for everyone.

This work isn’t meant for everyone. It takes hard work, dedication, and most important, the will power to opt-out of assumed systems and methods for doing business.

No one is going to force you to reign in your spending, reduce your business overhead to zero, or stop checking your email 35 times a day in order to do work that matters.

Some people are better off with 9-5 day jobs. In a lot of ways they’re much easier (though definitely not safer.) Some people like living in the same city, commuting to the same job every day. You can just sit there and do what you’re told, for most people that’s a perfectly acceptable way to live until they retire. If you’re one of these people, Minimalist Business isn’t really meant for you.

The Forever Guarantee on Minimalist Business.

Because Minimalist Business isn’t for everyone, I’ve decided to offer a Forever Guarantee.

If at any time in the future you feel that Minimalist Business isn’t living up to your expectations. If you put in a decent effort and your minimalist business tanks. If for some reason you thought this book was something else and you ordered it anyway. If you for any reason at any point you’re disappointed.

Paypal only allows for refunds up to 60-days, but I don’t care. I’ll send you a check if I have to in order to get your money back to you.

The importance of a Forever Guarantee in a digital world.

Because there are no gatekeepers in the new world of digital media, and distribution is free, it can sometimes be hard to tell the difference between a product that’s all hype and a product that provides value. Long-time supporters of my writing can vouch for the quality of my work, but it’s a big internet out there — inevitably some people will purchase my work and realize that it isn’t for them. There are many reasons for this, and I choose to not ask questions and simply give refunds.

That being said, refund rate is less than 1% of sales. I hope that speaks to the quality of the work, but it also can help you decide if you aren’t sure whether or not Minimalist Business is right for you.

At any time in the future, if you feel that Minimalist Business isn’t living up to it’s promise (or if you fail horribly with a decent effort) simply drop me an email and I’ll do everything in my power to get your money back to you.

How to purchase a copy of Minimalist Business.

There are only two models (but many copies) of Minimalist Business:

$50 $37 – THE BASIC “GETTING DOWN TO MINIMALIST BUSINESS” VERSION

Features: 125-page Minimalist Business e-book on creating your own minimalist business in order to live and work from anywhere + free updates for a year.

Minimalist Business features:

• Strategies for minimalist business success
• Time management techniques I’ve developed to focus on the important
• How to work towards making your entire living while working less than 10 hours a week
• How being minimalist makes minimalist business success so much easier
• The tools you need to start a zero-overhead business over the Internet
• How to separate your income from location so you can live anywhere
• Short articles by small business owners such as Leo Babauta, Tammy Strobel, Karol Gajda, and Colin Wright on how to effectively create a successful minimalist business.
• and much more…

You can preview the first 37 pages of the e-book here.

$60 $47 – THE UPGRADED “MINIMALIST PLAN” VERSION

Features: 125-page Minimalist Business e-book + The 30-Day Quick Start Guide to a Minimalist Business + free updates for a year.

This additional quick start guide features a tip-a-day that will help you build your minimalist business. Is it a sure-fire path to success? No. Do you have to do it over 30 days? certainly not.

Take your time, apply the action steps when you need them.

Readers have asked for me to break down the book into simple action steps that can be taken in order to build a minimalist business, so I created this quick start guide to try and address the actions you need to take to build a minimalist business. It isn’t a silver bullet, but if you’re the kind of person who likes day-by-day instructions, this can help.

Finally…

Minimalist Business isn’t a magic cure-all guide with all of the secrets that will let you sit back and make millions without any effort. If anyone tells you this is easy, they’re lying to you.

In my experience magic doesn’t exist, only hard work and practical strategies for doing work that matters.

This guide describes how I was able to make smart choices about business spending (i.e., not spending much at all) in order to build a business that supports my minimalist lifestyle (which doesn’t cost much at all.)

I hope this guide helps you create a minimalist business, or reduce the costs of your existing business until it’s profitable for you.

If you have any questions before making your final decision don’t hesitate to contact me.

Thank you for your time,

Everett Bogue

P.S.: Just for fun, here are 10 reasons why you should buy Minimalist Business.

1. You’re looking to make a change in the world, but you don’t have the money to do it.
2. You want to quit your day job in order to pursue work that’s important to you.
3. You really enjoyed The Art of Being Minimalist, and want to know what comes next.
4. You want to create passive income in order to live anywhere on the planet.
5. Two weeks of vacation a year is not enough for you.
6. You want to save trees (Minimalist Business is all digital.)
7. Someone told you there was more to life than buying things, and you want to know what that is.
8. Join the affiliate program and you can make your investment back by selling two copies.
9. You want to be on the cutting edge of creating a freedom business.
10. Why not? If you don’t like it you can always get a refund.

Why you can build a freedom business in order to work from anywhere in the world

Interview by Everett Bogue | Follow me on Twitter.

Karol Gajda is a globe-trotting minimalist rockstar –he even brings his hand-made guitar with them anywhere. He lives a simple life, has traveled through India, Thailand, and is currently in Poland. He’s dedicated to helping 100 people establish “ridiculously extraordinary” freedom at his blog by the same name.

Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Karol on a very special day — the release of his new product How to Live Anywhere. I’ve just read the e-book thoroughly, and I have to say, I’m incredibly impressed by the work he’s done. I won’t say more, I’d rather let the interview do the talking. I’m sure the e-book isn’t for everyone, but if you’re interested in pursuing a location independent life, How to Live Anywhere can help you.

Anyway, onward to the Interview. We spoke about Karol’s globe-trotting exploits, his changed attitude toward consumerism, and how to live anywhere in the world.

Everett Bogue: Karol, I’m fascinated by your ability to live and work from anywhere — many of your techniques I’ve been able to apply to my own business. As I understand your goals have morphed significantly over the last few years. How has your perspective on making a living shifted?

Karol Gajda: Thanks Everett! My living has always been based online, but I didn’t really start taking advantage of that until a couple years ago. Instead of embracing the opportunity to live and work anywhere I bought a big house, an expensive car, and useless toys. As you know I wrote more about that (and about how I got rid of everything) in the Minimalist Quick Start Guide here on Far Beyond The Stars.

Karol: My perspective has shifted from a blatant buy-buy-buy consumer to a careful consumer. I still buy things, but I live out of a 32 Liter backpack so I’ve given myself limits. For example, instead of buying a bunch of physical books I have an Amazon Kindle, which I can now use in almost any country I’m visiting. I’ve bought books while in India, Thailand, and Poland (which is where I am currently.)

Everett: I first interviewed you last year. I understand you’ve had quite a journey since. Can you give us an update on where you are now in your travels, where you’ve been, where you’re going?

Karol: Yeah, during that time I was in a small break between New Zealand and India, getting some vaccinations and catching up with friends/family for the holidays. Shortly after that interview I left for India to learn how to build guitars by hand. Technically I don’t call myself an ultralight packer anymore because I have a guitar in tow. But hey, I built it and it rules. The sacrifice of this piece of baggage is worth it. After 2 months in India I went to Thailand for 40 days. I was in Bangkok during the early parts of the protests, which unfortunately got violent and deadly about a week after I left Thailand for Poland. And I’m currently in Poland until October. I was born here, but my family left when I was a baby so I’m back to learn the language better and get to know some of my family. After Poland I’m going back to the US for about a month and likely Panama for 3-4 months after that.

Everett: How do you support yourself in order to live anywhere?

Karol: The easiest way to put it is Internet Marketing, but that’s such a general term. Over the past few years I’ve focused more on niche Web sites, doing affiliate marketing and niche info products. 80% of my income over the past 10 years has been through affiliate marketing. One of my favorite approaches is to use an infoproduct as a lead generator and then promoting infoproducts/memberships through affiliate marketing on the back end. For example, selling (or giving away) a small eBook about unique date ideas, and then promoting a dating site (or other dating products) on the backend.

And now, as of today, I’m launching my first product from my blog teaching people how to do what I do. The philosophy, logistics, and specific making money aspects of living anywhere.

Everett: What is your number one priority in releasing How to Live Anywhere?

Karol: When I started my blog in 2009 the goal was to help 100 people achieve Ridiculously Extraordinary Freedom, which is not defined by me, but by you. To me it’s the ability to live anywhere. To somebody else it might be to have a home base for most of the year, but move to Mexico or Japan or France for 3 months every year. It boils down to being able to do what you want, when you want, where you want, with whoever you want. How To Live Anywhere is essentially my life’s work, and can teach people how to make those kinds of awesome things happen.

Everett: In your mind, what is the single most important people should be doing with their work online if their goal is to live anywhere?

Karol: The quick answer is simple: provide value. But those words can come across as a bit empty sometimes. How exactly do we provide value? All of us have something unique we can teach people. For example, you started this blog and business by teaching people how to pare down their possessions and become minimalist. It doesn’t have to be any more complicated than that. Maybe you’re an amazing singer. You can teach that online. Maybe you rock at gardening. You can teach people your gardening secrets online. What I would say is don’t be like everybody else who is in your niche. Without showcasing your unique voice (we all have a unique voice) you’ll just get lost in the online crowd. If you’re truly giving people good content and giving us your personality, you will be heard through all the noise.

Everett: I imagine you’ve had to make some interesting lifestyle choices in order to live anywhere. Can you think of an unconventional strategy that you’ve had to employ to move anywhere?

Karol: Because of the way I travel I don’t need to be a minimalist. I’m visiting places for more than one month so I can chill out. Checking big baggage wouldn’t be a problem because I wouldn’t be lugging it around much. I’m not constantly on the move. That said, I live out of a 32 Liter backpack because minimalism makes life, whether you’re traveling or not, easier. Those of us in the minimalist community don’t think of it as unconventional at all. But this is a very small community. In general, whenever somebody sees my bag of possessions the first thing they always ask is, “Where is all your other stuff?” My answer: “This is it!” Minimalism is still quite an unconventional strategy even though it is becoming more mainstream.

Everett: Have you had to sacrifice anything?

Karol: Obviously I don’t get to see a lot of my friends back in the US. But then, a lot of my friends are constantly traveling as well. I do try to make it back to Michigan every New Year’s Eve because we throw a big party and reconnect. As far as things like technology, I’ve had to make no sacrifices. We live in an amazing time because so much can be done online, and a laptop is all you need. I haven’t even used a cell phone for 4 months. It has been fantastic!

Everett: Finally, what do you think the single most powerful benefit of living anywhere is?

Karol: Experiencing new people and new places teaches us to respect others and ourselves more. I used to sit at home all day, watching TV, going out with friends drinking, and stuff like that. The only lesson I learned from that is I wasn’t living life, life was living (and killing) me. By getting out into the world and living in new places I connect with new people (I used to be a big introvert and traveling has forced me to change that) and reconnect with myself. What I want out of life is awesome experiences. It took me a long time to learn this lesson, but the money I make is only important in that it allows me to seek out new people and experiences.

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Be sure to check out Karol Gajda’s How to Live Anywhere, available today.

When you opt-out of the endless cycle of consumerism, you can discover freedom.

Written by Everett Bogue | Follow me on Twitter.

Around two months ago, I made an announcement on Twitter that blew some people’s minds: I decided to live with less than 50 possessions.

I haven’t talked much about it on the blog, because I’ve been focused on producing content that helps people. Promoting the fact that I was living with 50 things just seemed to be bragging, so I haven’t talked too much about it until now.

For those who are joining us recently, the 50 things movement was started by Leo Babauta on his blog Mnmlist. Colin Wright and Henri Juntilla are also living with around the same number of things.

The 50 things movement doesn’t count shared items like cooking supplies, bedding, and furniture. I was only counting personal possessions that only belong to me.

Why I decided to live with 50 things.

I’m a big fan of trying out everything once, so I decided to jump on board and try it for awhile. I’ve been living with 75 things for awhile, and reducing that number to 50 didn’t seem like a huge leap. So, I went for it.

Here are the benefits of living with 50 things, from my experience living with less for two months between March 2010 – and May 2010. I no longer live with 50 things, and I’ll explain why further down.

1. It’s incredibly easy to relocate to anywhere in the world.

I moved to Oakland, CA from Brooklyn, NY on May 15th with my girlfriend Alix and Lola the cat. I tossed one backpack into luggage (I only did this because we had Lola the cat, and I wanted to simplify our trip on the plane even further or I would have carried it on.) And carried on a small bag with my laptop, a hoodie, and Jack Kerouac’s On The Road in it. All of my possessions moved easily from the East coast to the West coast.

In my previous moves with 100 things, I often felt like I was carrying entirely too much with me. When I had my stuffed-full backpacking bag (with sleeping bag and tent), plus my camera bag, plus my stuffed-full laptop bag. The combined weight made it difficult to move around easily. With 50 things I could easily carry all of my possessions without stressing my body.

2. It’s incredibly easy to find things.

When you have 50 things there is no way to lose things. I’m convinced that once we pass 150 things our minds can no longer pinpoint the exact location of all our individual possessions.

My theory about this is that up until recent history humans didn’t have more than 150 possessions, so we haven’t evolved to keep track of more than 150. This is why people with over 150 things are known to lose things (where are my sunglasses?)

When I had 100 things, I could easily pinpoint the location of any of my possessions in my mind before going to find them (the cleaning cloth of my laptop is in the left-front pocket of my laptop bag.) When I had 50 things, this superhuman ability became magnified. Because I had less to worry about, it was even easier to locate things.

3. You save a lot more money.

When you have 50 things, the urge to entertain yourself by spending money is incredibly diminished. I only made a couple of significant clothing purchases during the early months of this year, and that was to replace clothing items that had worn out.

My Frye boots that I’d owned for a number of years finally gave out, and I had to replace them with a new pair. I purchased a few new pairs of underwear and tank shirts for doing yoga in. Other than those purchases to replace completely destroyed clothes, I did not spend money on possessions.

4. You can pursue alternative ways of finding happiness.

Buying things doesn’t make you happy. The televisions have told us to buy things for the last 50 years, so it’s almost completely ingrained in our culture. “If I only had another gizmo, I’d be happier.” This isn’t true, and when you reduce your possessions in order to be conscious of your consumption, you start to find ways to fill the time which don’t involve purchasing junk.

5. More time to focus on the important.

When you have less things, you can focus on doing important work. One of the benefits of living with less, for me, has been that I can create work that matters. Instead of organizing my junk, I’ve been able to write two e-books, The Art of Being Minimalist, and the upcoming Minimalist Business, that now provide all of the income I need to survive.

I’ve known people with massive amounts of stuff in large spaces. What I’ve observed is that these people spend endless amounts of time organizing and cleaning their possessions. They also spend a lot more money on their spaces, because they need extra room for the stuff they don’t need. The junk starts to rule their lives. When you live with less the need for large spaces, and the time you have to spend on organizing, cleaning, and buying more stuff disappears. All of this free time can be dedicated to focusing on the important.

6. Financial freedom.

Ultimately this all leads to financial freedom. When you need less space, because you have less stuff, you can work less to support yourself. Many people can’t escape their debt because of oversized houses, junk-buying habits, and having no time to focus on the important. Living with less can solve that problem.

I suppose all of these apply to living with 75 things as well, but when you live with 50 things they are amplified.

Why I decided to stop living with 50 things.

Living with 50 things was incredibly liberating, but since moving to California I’ve decided to abandon the experiment and move back to living with 75 things. Why? There are two main reasons.

1. I need to simplify my laundry days.

Living with 50 things means you have to clean your clothing more often. I found myself at the laundromat once a week like clockwork. This was fine in Brooklyn because the laundromat was three buildings away, but the laundromat in Oakland is six blocks away, which means I have to dedicate a significant amount of time once a week to laundry-doing.

In order to simplify my laundry schedule in order to focus on the important, I’m gradually purchasing more clothing to save time doing laundry.

On Wednesday I purchased two pairs (I was living with one pair that was starting to show wear) of high-quality denim jeans, which fit well. I’ve also purchased a few more t-shirts and underwear in order to lengthen time between laundromat visits. Eventually I hope to be able to do laundry once every two weeks.

Side-note: I now have a 29 inch waist. This is down from toping out at 33 inches when I had my day job. Apparently living a free and independent minimalist life is very good for your waist size.

Obviously you could argue that I could wash my clothing in my sink. I don’t own quick-dry clothing, though I would purchase some if I were to go abroad. I’ve found that hand-washing is much more of a time-sink than laundromat washing. This time would be better spent working on the important, so I’ve opted not to hand-wash clothing items.

2. I missed my Moleskin and pen.

One of the items I downsized when moving to 50-things was all of my paper, so I tossed my Moleskin notebook that I use for free-writing and brainstorming. This meant that I couldn’t do hand-written brainstorming sessions.

While eliminating my Moleskin simplified my life by directing all of my brainstorming sessions into Evernote, I found that the experience of typing ideas into Evernote on my iPhone was less than satisfactory. Writing by hand is both an inexpensive and also a simple way to capture ideas for later use.

I’ve also found that writing my hand helps center the hemispheres of my brain, and more easily allows me to move to a creative place. There is also no Twitter application to accidentally open in my Moleskin.

In conclusion.

I realize that living with 75 things is still very little for most people, and the 50 things that I had was an incredibly small number. I haven’t updated my possessions list to reflect what I currently have, I’ll be sure to do that soon.

Living with less isn’t for everyone, but I’ve discovered that it can make life a lot simpler when you decide to opt out of the endless cycle of consumerism.

For more on how I was able to reduce my possessions to less than 100 things in order to live anywhere, check out my e-book The Art of Being Minimalist.

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The New Escapologist interviewed me yesterday about minimalist freedom and escaping from the dying magazine industry.

On Tuesday I’m interviewing Karol Gajda of Ridiculously Extraordinary about how he lives and works from anywhere. Don’t miss out, sign up for free updates via RSS or EMAIL.

Why time is more important than spending money on things you don’t need

Written by Everett Bogue | Follow me on Twitter.

It’s been a little over two weeks since Alix and I (and Lola the cat) moved to Oakland, CA. and one of the things that struck me recently was how good life is out here.

There are trees everywhere, and panoramic views of the fog rolling in over the bay from our rooftop. It’s everything I could have asked for and more. –’More’ being the Whole Foods a mere five blocks from the cheapest apartment I’ve ever rented in my life, one that also has 13 windows that all look out on the hills over Berkeley.

Anyway, I just want to share with you an observation that occurred to me as I was lying awake tonight:

You can live like a prince on a lot less than six-figures a year.

One of my goals with my minimalist business was to generate six-figures of income by the end of one year. I’m pretty much certain at this moment that whether or not I continue to pursue that goal this outcome will happen. However, making that much money doesn’t need to be a requirement to live a good life.

My current income level is more than enough to support everything that I do.

So many people live their lives waiting. They tell themselves, “if only I had a million dollars, I’d do X” (X being what you wish you’d do with your life.)

After my experiences from the last year, I’m convinced that this is simply an excuse to not face the fact that doing what you want is difficult and involves sacrificing a couple of huge expenses that you don’t really need anyway.

Simply put, doing what you want involves killing a couple of “necessities” in order to actually live your life in the name of minimalism.

Here are a couple of things that you need to give up to live like a prince on less than six-figures a year.

1. Give up your car.

I’m convinced that I’d never have been able to achieve this life if I was also making car payments, insurance payments, and $3.15 a gallon on gas. Cars rule our lives financially, and they also make our cities inhospitable. Oh! cars also kill people (and squirrels.) Give up your car, and you can allocate $5,000-$8,000 a year to living like a prince. What do you have to do to live without a car? Move to a place where you don’t need a car (these places are better anyway.) Get a bike, it’ll make you healthier. In most places in the United States the money you spent on your car can cover the rent on your prince’s palace.

2. Give up your storage.

I’m convinced that I’d never be able to live this life if I was also paying for storage. So many people insist on renting or mortgaging a space that is 5x the size they need to store junk they never use. Our apartment in Oakland has 13 windows but only one bedroom. This is possible because we don’t need three spare bedrooms, an attic, and a two-car garage to fill up with junk we don’t use. The storage industry has profits in the billions of dollars because people own more than they can even keep in their oversized houses. Lose the junk, and you can live like a prince on less than six-figures a year.

3. Give up on entertaining yourself until death.

One of the final remaining elements of this equation is eliminating most forms of expensive, and especially subscription, entertainment. Destroy your TV, cancel your cable, stop dragging yourself to the movies every Friday to see the latest Hollywood rehash. What matters in your life is experiences, and by experiences I’m not talking about how 3D the glasses made them look. Most good things in life can be experienced by putting on your shoes and walking outside.

4. Give up the idea of trading time for money.

My last article was so successful for a reason: two weeks of vacation a year is a crime. They call it wage slavery for a reason, and it’s the slavery part that I need to emphasize here. When you opt-out of trading time for money, and begin to instead contribute value to the world, you have a chance to begin to reclaim the time you deserve.

Tim Ferriss has a term he uses called The New Rich. A lot of people misinterpret this term as referring to money. Let me let you into a secret that is obvious to a select few: it’s not about money.

The New Rich is about paying yourself with time and mobility to do what matters to you.

I can’t take everyone by the hand and physically remove the junk they don’t need from their lives.

I can’t come to your house and drive your car to the dump or stop you from buying a new one every couple of years.

Why can’t I? because I’m too busy wandering around the magnificent San Francisco during my 80% spare time.

The decision to be free is one you need to make for yourself. Only you can change your consumption patterns in order to live like a prince on less than six-figures a year.

You don’t need to be a millionaire to make this change, you simply need to simplify your life in order to focus on the important.

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If you have time, I want you to check out a remarkable blog I’ve been reading by Eric Heins. He’s a young leather worker who decided to simplify his life in order to live and work from anywhere. Read the blog from start to finish, it’s guaranteed to inspire: The Barter Project.

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If this article helped you, it only takes 10 seconds to retweet it or share it in your favorite manner. Your support is only reason that more people hear about my work. Thank you.

Being self-employed isn’t easy, but it is rewarding.

Written by Everett Bogue | Follow me on Twitter.

It’s Monday morning in Oakland, California, as I’m writing this. I’m sipping a cup of coffee, looking at the rolling hills behind Berkeley from a coffee shop in Rockridge. Clouds are rolling in from the Bay, it’s absolutely stunning.

A few days ago Maren Kate of Escaping the 9-5 interviewed me about achieving online business success (I’ll let you know when the Interview goes live on Twitter,) and it got me thinking: it’s almost been a year since I had a ‘job’ in the assumed sense of the word.

In hindsight, it seems so silly that I had one to begin with. There are just so many benefits to not having one these days.

Having a job might be good for some people, but it isn’t for everyone –contrary to what everyone will tell you.

The long hours, the designated tasks, having to run plans by colleagues or bosses before putting your plans into action seems like far too much to ask after a year of minimalist freedom.

We grow up with this idea that we’re supposed to train for the “workforce”. Most of our parents had jobs, all of our friends want to get jobs, all of the advertisements tell you to buy stuff in order to make you happier at your job.

Having a job is in many ways a lot easier than choosing not to have one.

When you have a job, you typically are told what to do. Someone at one point or another wrote the call script for your life, and all you have to do is follow along until the clock hits 5, and then it’s happy hour.

We didn’t always have jobs.

Seth Godin likes to bring up this little fact in his Linchpin sessions: at the first factories they literally had men pushing carts of gin back and forth on the factory floor. People were so unaccustomed to working for hours straight that their owners had to keep them drunk all day in order to keep them happy enough to continue to do a good day’s work.

Gradually we’ve trained a workforce that’s a little more into the idea of working long hours, so the gin carts are now mostly unnecessary –though I’ve known plenty of colleagues who kept bottles of whiskey in their desk drawers just to stay sane when they had to stay late.

Why minimalism can free you from being required to have a job.

The brilliant thing about minimalism, when applied in the strictest sense of the philosophy, is that it can free you from needing to have a job.

• When you live with less than 100 things, you don’t need disposable income to stay happy.
• When you free up your schedule, you can pursue work that matters.
• When you stop the weekend shopping sprees, you don’t need a huge house to store all of that stuff you don’t need.

This all leads to having a base life-overhead which is much smaller than everyone else. When you have less overhead, you can have the freedom to begin working for yourself.

I won’t spend too much time on how minimalism can reduce your overhead. If you’re interested in pursuing a minimalist life, check out my e-book The Art of Being Minimalist, or my friend Daniel Richards’ new e-book Doing With Less.

What I’m interested in conveying to you is the benefits of not having a job.

Yes, not having a job isn’t for everyone. Some people enjoy being told what to do, and other people have jobs they really love. I wouldn’t want anyone to leave a situation that they really enjoyed simply because of an article I wrote.

The most important fact to consider is that not having a job isn’t easy. Starting a minimalist business with no-overhead that runs itself can be challenging. It might involve long hours in the beginning, and relies on individual creativity to succeed. No one can hand you the magic bullet that will tell you how to create income that doesn’t come from having a job.

Ultimately you need to trust yourself, and follow the path that feels right for you.

Here are 27 reasons why you should never have a job.

1. Financial security.

Creating your own business can be much more financially secure than having a job. At a job, all of your income is in one basket, which is the farthest thing from financial security that I can think of. Many people with jobs live in endless fear of losing them, because if they did the money just stops coming. If you screw up, or say the wrong thing, poof! There goes all of your income, your benefits, and sometimes your social life all at once.

2. Diversified income streams.

When you have your own business, you can concentrate on having diversified income streams. A job pays you all at once, and if you lose it all of your money goes away. With a minimalist business, you can develop variable income sources. If one dries up, the others still thrive. Some income will be small and occasional, other income will be large and regular. The most important aspect is that it’s all coming from different sources, and nothing can go wrong with them all at once, like when you have a job.

3. Contribute value to your legacy.

When you have a job, you’re contributing value to the legacy of an organization that is bigger than you. That usually means that the legacy is separate from your own. Yes, you can create great work at a company, but chances are you won’t be bragging about the stunning TPS report design you did at company X to your grandchildren. When you create your own business, you’re contributing value to your own lasting legacy.

4. Live anywhere.

When you create your own business, especially on the Internet, you can live anywhere in the world. For instance, last week I moved from Brooklyn, NY to Oakland, CA. I never could have done that if I had to go into an office, because they would decide where I lived. Some job markets are stronger than others. In my experience, strong job markets usually coincide with expensive or crappy living conditions. By freeing yourself from location, and not having a job, you can live anywhere in the world. A great resource for learning to live anywhere is Karol Gajda’s How to Live Anywhere, coming June 8th.

5. Unlimited vacation.

Face it, two weeks of vacation a year is a crime. Whoever decided people should work 50 weeks out of the year was absolutely insane. How this was adopted as an industry standard is beyond me. When you create your own business, you can develop a more flexible vacation schedule. 25 weeks a year? Go for it!

6. Choose your own path.

When you have a job, chances are you’ll be told exactly what to do every day. Handle this client, print that TSP report, sit at your desk for 8-10 hours a day! When you create your own business, you can choose your own path. Obviously, this also means that you can choose the wrong one. But in my experience, even the wrong paths are much more interesting than sitting at a desk all day. Yes, you’ll make mistakes. Yes, it isn’t easy. But wouldn’t you rather have an exciting life than a dull one under fluorescent lights?

7. Flexible schedule.

One of the best reasons not to have a job is having a flexible schedule. At a job you have to be there Mon-Fri 9-5, or something like that. When you create your own job, you can work when you’re most productive. Some people work best in the middle of the night, others work best in the afternoons. I’ve found that I can usually create quality material in a few hours every week, freeing myself to do other things that matter to me, like practicing Yoga.

8. Avoid reactionary workflow.

There’s an always-on mentality that is quickly coming to dominate our society. We feel like we must be on our crackberries and iPhones every single hour of the day, just in case something happens. The reality is that nothing important really happens, our minds only make it that way. When you don’t have a job, no one will force you to answer your email in the middle of the night. This frees you up to focus on the work that matters, and creating powerful passive income streams.

9. You don’t have to conform to other people’s expectations.

It’s no secret that one of my favorite small business writers is Chris Guillebeau, who writes The Art of Non-conformity, and his small business guide The Unconventional Guide to Working For Yourself. We often forget how weird it is to opt-out of the the idea of having a job, but it is pretty strange for a lot of people. The best part of not having a job is that you don’t have to conform to other people’s expectations. You can be weird if you want to be, and no one will fire you for it. The funny thing is, weird is one of the best niches to set up your small business in — there’s too much regular out there already.

10. Making money in your sleep.

Oh, have I mentioned when you start your own online business, there’s a very real possibility that you’ll make money in your sleep? Well, there is. There’s nothing like checking your email (once a day) and seeing that you made all the income you need to survive using automated means while you were taking a snooze. It’s definitely worth quitting your job to experience that freedom.

11. Freedom to be a leader.

Jobs are built around conformity, that’s why everyone is expected to wear ‘work appropriate clothing’ that they purchased at J. Crew. What does conformity do? It makes it possible for upper management to keep the lower levels in line, on task, and compliant. When you opt out of having a job, it frees you to be a leader. A leader has to stand out, and have vision. A leader has to show people the way by telling the truth as it is. The truth is that business casual isn’t something you have to subject yourself.

12. Choose work that excites you.

Most jobs are made up of mundane activities that someone higher up in the food chain asked you to do. File that TPS, buddy, or you’re going to be stuck in middle-management forever! When you don’t have a job, you can choose work that excites you. Do you want to create a product that teaches people how to live a passionate life, like my friend Henri Juntilla? Go for it!

13. Surround yourself with people you care about.

When you have a job, someone else chooses who you spend your time with during 60% of your life. In some of these cases, you’re stuck with people who you don’t particularly care for. These might be company lifers, or dead-eyed soul-sucked individuals who opted out of living life years ago. When you work for yourself, you can pick your own social circle. As my friend Glen Allsopp likes to mention, you’re going to be as successful as your social circle. So pick people to hang around with who have a lot of money coming in –they also will be more inclined to buy you beers than boring company lifers.

14. Sleep whenever you want.

Different people sleep different. For instance, now that I’m in California, I’ve been waking up early in the morning (by California standards), because I used to wake up at 10am in New York. When you have a job, someone else is determining when you wake up. Maybe you’re the kind of person who enjoys staying up until 4am working on projects that matter to you? If you don’t have a job, you totally can.

15. The ultimate ROWE environment.

One of the newest fads in workplace civil rights is the idea of the Results Only Work Environment (or ROWE). My friend Jeffrey F. Tang wrote an article about ROWE here. Well, not having a job is the ultimate ROWE, because the only thing that matters is your results. When you have a job, unless you work at a hip progressive ROWE company, chances are you’re only rewarded for sitting at a desk (6 hours Facebook, 2 hours actual work! Yay!.) Well, some people don’t work well sitting at desks, believe it or not. When you start your own business, only the results matter, no one cares if you get them while plopped in a desk.

16. Work on projects which will change the world.

The most profitable projects, in my experience, are also ones that change the world. When you work at a job, chances are no one really wants you to do any world changing. They just want you to maintain the status-quo. When you don’t have a job, this frees you to work on projects that will change the world. Maybe you want to teach people how to live without their cars, like my friend Tammy Strobel does in her e-book Simply Car-free. Or maybe you want to sew sustainable puppy blankets. The change you make is up to you.

17. You only have to make yourself (and maybe your significant other) happy.

When you have a job, you have to make your boss happy, your colleagues happy, and if you don’t well, then that single source of income we talked about earlier is on the line. When you don’t have a job, the only person you have to make happy is yourself –and possibly your significant other. What I’ve discovered, in my nearly a year of not having a job, is that it’s much easier to make yourself happy when you’re not trying to make everyone else happy at the same time.

18. Prepare your own food.

This is key. When I used to have a job, I’d constantly get food out. I ate at my desk, because I was afraid if I was away for more than 15 minutes all hell would break loose. When you work for yourself, you can also work in your kitchen (which I do often!) This means you can prepare healthy food, that tastes good. You can also make your own coffee (so much better than office coffee.) Making your own hot food while you take a break from work is so much better than packing a lunch and heating it up in the microwave.

19. No waiting for retirement.

Just wait until you’re 65, then you can do whatever you want. Seriously? I think you should do things while you’re young, athletic, and the ladies (or lads) still like you to look at you. Face it, waiting for retirement to get more than 2 weeks of vacation is a crime against your humanity. When you work for yourself, you can retire whenever you want for however long you need — as long as you have the resources. The truth is that we need time off to rejuvenate our ability to live. I like to take weeks at a time when I do very little except Yoga, reading, and wandering aimlessly. You can’t wander aimlessly on a Wednesday morning when you have a job. The funny thing is, the best ideas come when you’re not working for them. Bonus: take a year off every seven years like Stefan Sagmeister does.

20. Time to focus on the important.

When I had a job, I never had enough time to do what was important to me. On the forefront of my mind was always the task at hand at my job, whether or not I actually cared. When you don’t have a job, you can focus on what is important to you. This is different for everyone, as everyone is different.

21. Cool people don’t have jobs anymore.

Face it, it’s so cool to tell people that you’re self-employed. However, it’s not cool to brag about the fact that you have the best hours, a flexible work schedule, and that you get to work on things that matter in front of people who have jobs. Don’t rub it in, the best self-employed rockstars show, they don’t tell.

22. Work from wherever you want.

Today I edited this post from the awesome kitchen in my brand-new apartment in Oakland’s hopping Temescal ‘hood, I wrote most of the post while I was grabbing a coffee over in Rockridge. One of the biggest benefits of working for yourself is that it doesn’t matter where you work. You could be on a beach somewhere, you could be at a coffee shop, you could backpack through India. Location doesn’t matter when you’re living the digital lifestyle.

23. Working for yourself is the best way to approach work in a recession.

Look around you, no important businesses are hiring anymore. Big businesses are hunkered down and waiting for us to come out of this recession. You can either wait until the recession is over to find the job you truly desire, or you can settle for less than the best. The Subway sandwich shop near me is hiring “Sandwich Artists”, but that doesn’t mean you should apply there.

24. Showers in the middle of the day.

This probably goes without saying, but it’s pretty sweet to be able to take a hot shower in the middle of a Monday afternoon. That wouldn’t be possible at a job.

25. Multiple paydays.

When you have a job, all of your income comes from one place, and you know when it comes. This means if the section of the economy where your job is located collapses, your only paycheck is on the line (as mentioned above.) But it also means that you know exactly when you’re being paid. When you don’t have a job, your pay can come from all different directions, and at different times. This replaces the monotony of knowing with the fun uncertainty and improvisation that comes with multiple paydays.

26. You don’t have to sit at a desk under fluorescent lights all day.

Sitting at a desk all day has been proven to be incredibly bad for your health. Some people are incredibly product at desks, but many of us aren’t. I think of most of my ideas when I’m walking. Maybe you think of your ideas while standing on your head. Sitting at a desk all day is just something we do because someone told us to, not because it’s a useful practice.

27. Uncertainty keeps you on your toes.

Jobs seem so certain. You’re protected from the harsh realities of the world in a lot of situations. This can be a good thing, but it also keeps you in the dark. I’m convinced that we grow with uncertainty. It makes us thrive, because we’re constantly adapting and changing our strategies. This means that you’ll never stop learning when you’re working for yourself, as your free to try new things and take new paths.

The reality of the situation is working for yourself is one of the best ways to improvise and ultimately survive in this boom-and-bust economy.

Does that mean that you won’t have to work hard? certainly not. There are no magic ‘get rich in your sleep’ solutions, there is only the hard work that you need to do to set yourself up to leave your job and set out on your own.

I don’t have all of the answers, but I do know that working for yourself is so much better than having a job. Is it for everyone? certainly not. But if you want to pursue a freer reality, this may be the answer you’re looking for.

–

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Minimalist Business is relaunching on June 15th, don’t miss it! Sign up for free updates via email or RSS.

On moving to SF Bay, and how minimalism makes small goals reach success.

Written by Everett Bogue | Follow me on Twitter.

First of all, I just wanted to say thank you for everyone who came out to support the launch of Minimalist Business.

The turnout was simply extraordinary. You’ve blown me away with your enthusiasm. I’ve received an incredible amount of email over the last two days, and I apologize if it’s taking me awhile to get back to everyone.

So far the feedback has been 95% positive, constructive, or simply thanking me for doing this work. Thank you.

How successful was the pre-launch of Minimalist Business?

Because Minimalist Business is truly riding on the idea that a location independent digital business can support an individual, I think it’s best if we have complete transparency about how much money came in from the pre-launch for my latest product.

I’m doing this not to gloat over the money (because it really isn’t that much, but it’s plenty compared to how much money I spend maintaining my minimal lifestyle.) But because I want you to see what’s possible if you put in the work to make this kind of business a reality for you.

The launch brought in just over $6000 over 24 hours.

My goal with this release was $2000, which I passed in the first hour. The pre-release of Minimalist Business did far better than I ever could have anticipated.

Depending on your perspective, that figure is either a lot or very little. I have friends who bring home a paycheck this size every week (and they spend it just as quickly.) If you remember from my writing last year, I survived on $3000 in Portland for three months. Needless to say, this is more than enough to support my on-going work for an extended period of time, — my life-overhead is so incredibly low.

Also, this figure is above and beyond the income already coming in from The Art of Being Minimalist and the affiliate work that I do for other work that I believe in. I see it as more of an investment in future work.

Long time readers know that I live with 50-things, so don’t expect to see me go on shopping sprees or anything like that. I’m just not interested in wasting money supporting consumerism, when the work is so much more important.

The myth that you can’t pay the bills working as a writer.

The biggest element of this whole story, the one that’s a real shocker to a lot of people in the world, is the fact that you truly can make a living as a writer by creating great work.

I spoke in Minimalist Business about the idea that we don’t need middlemen anymore. When you stop waiting around for a publishing house, an agent, a record label to come ‘discover’ your work, you free yourself up to start doing the work that supports you.

Far Beyond The Stars is named after a story in which a writer in the 1940s literally has his life destroyed because of middlemen who won’t publish his work. The fact that middlemen no longer rule the world is truly liberating to every artist in the world.

The first step is to recognize this fact, then we all need to actually start acting on it with the resources that we have at our disposal. I hope that Minimalist Business gives people the tools and inspiration to do this.

On location independence in SF Bay.

As most of you know, my girlfriend and I are moving to The San Francisco bay area on Saturday May 15th. We’ll probably be setting up shop in Oakland, because it seems to be the kind of neighborhood that we’d enjoy living in.

We’re staying in a room in an apartment we booked at Airbnb. They’re letting us bring the cat, this is awesome.

As we’re moving in only a couple of days, I may be less in-contact than I normally am. Moving is fairly easy for me, being that all of my stuff fits into a bag, but I’ll be busy locating an apartment that rocks in a neighborhood that rocks.

I haven’t lived in a new place since returning to Brooklyn in January, so I’m incredibly excited about exploring a new place.

On the affiliate relaunch of Minimalist Business.

One of the hardest decisions I had to make was whether to include my affiliate network in the initial launch of Minimalist Business. I made the decision to just distribute the initial release here, on my site only.

In my view, the work just isn’t ready for wider exposure yet. It stands on it’s own, but after the relaunch is will truly rock the world.

Think about it this way: you now have a month or so to become incredibly familiar with the work for the re-release. I’ll be distributing Minimalist Business with 50% commission, so you only need to sell two copies to make back your purchase price, or even more.

My true hope is that after you’ve read the e-book, it will be easier than ever for you to do this. I’ll be sure to give you more info as we get closer to the date about how to join the affiliate relaunch of Minimalist Business.

Thanks so much for sticking with me on this. I promise that it will pay off in the future with a stronger work for you to advocate for, if you’re part of my affiliate network, or are interested in joining.

On Minimalist Business feedback.

As I’ve been saying, a lot of the work that I’ll be doing over the next month will be on making Minimalist Business better. I want to hear from you. What wasn’t clear? What was missing? How can this help you better?

We’re already nailing the grammatical problems, but I honestly think these are less important — I’ve also already received emails from dozens of people offering to help with this, so rest assured the grammar will be spotless in the next release.

The overarching message of the work is most important to me.

We can spend all day discussing whether a sentence needs to be three inches to the left, or whether a comma is necessary or not. Copy editing is important, but it’s also easy to fix. What is important is making better the work that matters, this is the hard part — and hence the focus of 90% of my attention in the next month.

Contact me with your thoughts, I’d love to hear from you.

On creating work at the basis of existence.

We’re taught daily by society that money matters above all else. If only we had a little more money, everything would be better. We’d be able to live better, people would like us more, we’d be able to get a nicer handbag.

None of that matters. Money isn’t important.

I fully intend to continue living at the basis of existence, and using the resources that I’ve received by contributing value to continue contributing value to you. This is the most important element, and one that we should all consider when working on our own minimalist business ventures.

The basis of existence is an idea that you only need food and housing to survive, the rest of everything you think you need has been pushed on your by marketing and advertisers. You don’t need any of that, live simply and free yourself to work on what is important.

As Rolf Potts recently observed on Tim Ferriss’s 4 Hour Workweek blog “…neither self nor wealth can be measured in terms of what you consume or own.”

What matters most is the time you have to work on what matters most to you.

By supporting my work, you’ve given me the time to work on making the work even more valuable than it already is.

I fully expect $6000 to support my lifestyle for the next three to four months, due to living at the basis of existence. Will I have more money coming in from The Art of Being Minimalist? Of course. This doesn’t give me the permission to blow it on fruitless endeavors or consumerism. That would defeat the point.

When you stop trading time for money, and spending money to eat up time, you opt out of a perpetual cycle that is keeping you basically imprisoned in a corporate system.

Then you can be free to create work that matters.

Thank you all for your support, it means so much to know that I’m helping you make a difference.

Best,
Everett Bogue

How to Live and Work from Anywhere

Written by Everett Bogue | Follow me on Twitter.

[UPDATE JUNE 15th 2010: You can now purchase a copy of Minimalist Business over here.]

[UPDATE MAY 11th 2010: The limited release of Minimalist Business is now over. I’ll be relaunching the guide in a month or so, be sure to sign up for free updates via RSS or EMAIL so you don’t miss out!]

Everyone has a moment when they start to believe.

This is the moment when it all starts to make sense, when the pieces click into place, and success becomes inevitable.

My moment came in the summer of 2008. I was working full time as a photo editor at New York Magazine.

This was before the near collapse of the banking system, but there was still very little money going around. Especially in the photo industry –it’s incredibly difficult to get gigs when there are 3 million photographers and most of them sell their stuff for $1 on istockphoto.

I attended a small convention of photographers in downtown Manhattan with my friend Diana Sabreen, who worked for me as a photographer at the time.

Photography conventions are incredibly sad. There are typically thousands of underpaid and dispirited professional photographers attending — they’ve bought all the gear, but they can’t find the work, and the underlying purpose of conventions is simply to give Nikon and Canon a venue to sell photographers more gear that they don’t need.

How I discovered that you can live and work from anywhere.

One speaker stood out to me though, Rob Haggart. He claimed to be a photo editor, but wasn’t working at a magazine anymore. Instead he ran a blog called A Photo Editor.

All of the photographers loved him. It was impossible to talk with him at the convention because their was such a crowd around this guy. I couldn’t figure out why, because he apparently didn’t do anything — he obviously couldn’t employ these people because he didn’t work at a magazine or agency. Why was he so successful?

Later at drinks down on The Bowery in Manhattan I walked up and asked Rob a simple question: “Photo editor to photo editor, what do you actually do?”

“I sell photo portfolio websites, and spend most of my time hiking and raft around Colorado with my kids.” and then he added quite mysteriously “…It really is possible to live and work from anywhere.” Then he walked away.

I had another gin and tonic and headed home, but his words stayed with me until I quit my job in July of 2009 with a single intention: to move across the country and learn how to live and work from anywhere.

What I found during this experiment was stunning, it really is possible to live and work from anywhere.

You can create a minimalist business in order to live and work from anywhere.

The Internet has broken down all of the barriers in communication, and this in turn has broken down all of the barriers in sales. If there are no costs, you can sell to anyone in the world.

Any one person can contribute value to a tribe of 1000, or 10,000 people who will support them online.

Shortly after I announced earlier this year that my e-book The Art of Being Minimalist was fully supporting my minimalist lifestyle, I started to receive a flood of emails from people asking what I’d done to be able to live and work from anywhere.

These emails haven’t stopped. Everyone wants to know how to create a business that allows them to live and work from anywhere in the world. I’ve done my best to answer every email, but the sheer volume made me realize that I had to record my thoughts in a place where they were more widely available to people who need the knowledge.

I believe this development, how to live and work from anywhere, will be remembered as the single most important change in the history of the modern age.

Slowly, and quite silently, a small legion of extraordinary individuals are learning how to harness the power of the Internet to create location independent micro-businesses which allow them to move when and where they please.

I also believe:

1. It’s a lot easier to start a minimalist business than it is to find a fulfilling job with the current state of the economy.
2. An MB (minimalist businessman) doesn’t need to work as many hours as a typical wage slave (I currently work only 10 hours a week, but I’m angling for 4.)
3. Anyone with enough strength and willpower now has access to the resources that allow them to create a minimalist business.

So why isn’t everyone creating a minimalist already?

Because of fear. The world changes slower we like to think. Many people want guarantees, they want someone to point them in the right direction and physically show them every single step they should take.

Ironically, doing exactly what everyone else isn’t doing is the easiest way to find success.

Most people are trained from kindergarten to sit down, shut up, and do as their told. Doing what you’re told makes it pretty impossible to start a minimalist business, because there’s no one to tell you what to do. You’re the only employee!

There are no 12 simple steps to a minimalist business. There are no magic bullets.

I can’t tell you every single thing you need to do to make a business successful, because every minimalist business relies on the individuality of it’s creator.

The unique qualities that make you different are what you have to harness to create a minimalist business.

Only a few people on the cutting edge of change will gather the strength to make this journey. Eventually, the rest may follow, but for right now this really is frontier territory.

Who shouldn’t buy Minimalist Business:

• People who want all the answers.
• People who are looking for magic bullets.
• People who want an easy life where they don’t have to answer hard questions.
• People who are happy in their day jobs.
• Hotshot internet marketers already making a huge income on the web.

I’ve done my best to lay a framework for how you can create a minimalist business, based on my own observations during the creation of my minimalist business.

Perfect is the enemy of done.

This version isn’t perfect. Seth Godin told us in Linchpin that every project needs a ship date. So I set one, and today I shipped. That being said, if it hasn’t been made apparent already, this is an incredibly ambitious project. I’m sure I’ve left some things out, I’m sure I’ve spelled a few things wrong, I’m sure some people won’t “get it”.

This is why I’m only releasing Minimalist Business for today 24 hours to the readers of Far Beyond The Stars. You guys are awesome, and first and foremost I want to help you with the information that’s contained in Minimalist Business.

This version is offered at a significant discount from what the price will be when I release the guide in a month to affiliates and a larger audience.

I want to hear from you.

Contact me with any questions you have about the guide. Let me know what you think is missing. Let me know what you need to know to be successful. I’ll do my best to answer, if I know the answer.

While I might not have all of the answers. I have successfully created a minimalist business, so hopefully I’ll be able to help you.

This version isn’t perfect, but everyone who purchases now will receive free updates for an entire year. With your input, we’ll make it perfect as time goes along.

The effectiveness guarantee.

Minimalist Business won’t be right for everyone. I understand this. There’s also an incredible number of skeezy Internet marketers selling “secret guides to making money online” that over-hype their value and under-deliver on quality. If you’re a long-time reader, you will know that I am not one of these people.

This is why I’m offering a full refund to anyone who isn’t happy:

• If Minimalist Business doesn’t help you.
• If Minimalist Business isn’t what you thought it was.
• If Minimalist Business doesn’t enable you to create at least $250 of income on the side (that’s $3000 a year!) by the end of six months (high performers will of course do must better than this.)

Then I’ll refund you the entire purchase price of Minimalist Business. No questions asked.

I don’t want anyone to feel like they made a bad decision.

Paypal only allows me to offer refunds for 60-days. However, I’ll do everything in my power to offer a refund at any time in the future. As long as I’m still breathing, you can get your money back on this product if at any moment you feel like it isn’t living up to your expectations.

How to purchase Minimalist Business

As I said above, I’m only selling Minimalist Business at these reduced prices for 24 hours. You have from May 10th at 10am EST until May 11th at 10am EST to purchase Minimalist Business at the reduced prices below.

$50 $37 – The Basic “Getting Down to Minimalist Business” Version

Features: 112-page Minimalist Business e-book on creating your own minimalist business in order to live and work from anywhere + free updates for a year.

Minimalist Business features:

• Strategies for minimalist business success
• Time management techniques I’ve developed to focus on the important
• How to work towards making your entire living while working a less than 10 hours a week
• How being minimalist makes minimalist business success so much easier
• The tools you need to start a zero-overhead business over the Internet
• How to separate your income from location so you can live anywhere
• A guest article by Leo Babauta on his secret to creating a successful business
• and much more…

You can preview the first 35 pages of the e-book here.

$60 $47 – The Upgraded “Minimalist Plan” Version

Features: 112-page Minimalist Business e-book + The 30-Day Quick Start Guide to a Minimalist Business + free updates for a year.

This additional quick start guide features a tip-a-day that will help you build your minimalist business. Is it a sure-fire path to success? No. Do you have to do it over 30 days? certainly not.

Take your time, apply the action steps when you need them.

Readers have asked for me to break down the book into simple action steps that can be taken in order to build a minimalist business, so I created this quick start guide to try and address the actions you need to take to build a minimalist business. It isn’t a silver bullet, but if you’re the kind of person who likes day-by-day instructions, this can help.

$750 $257 – The Complete “Destined for Minimalist Success” Version (Limited Quantities)

Features: 112-page Minimalist Business e-book + The 30-Day Quick Start Guide to a Minimalist Business + 30 Days of Email Coaching with me, Everett Bogue + free updates for a year.

The email coaching starts at a time of your choosing. Purchase it now, read the book at your leisure, and contact me when you’re ready to get started with coaching.

I’ve been asked by a number of readers to offer Minimalist Business coaching. I’ve received incredible value from 1 on 1 sessions with teachers in my life, so I want to have the opportunity to give back to people who need the 1 on 1 attention.

I may take this down if there is overwhelming demand. I can only take on so many coaching clients, and I don’t want to take on so much that I can’t offer incredible value to the people who take me up on this offer.

To be honest, I don’t know if I’ll ever offer coaching as feature again. I certainly don’t need the money to support my minimalist lifestyle, and it takes a lot of time to coach people to business success. If I do offer coaching again, it will be much more expensive than the current price.

Basically: this is probably the last time you’ll be able to purchase 1 on 1 coaching with me for this low price.

The effectiveness guarantee (see above if you missed it) is available for all purchase options — even the coaching! If you aren’t satisfied, drop me an email and I’ll issue a full refund.

To sum it all up.

Yes, you can live and work from anywhere. Yes, you can achieve minimalist business success.

The reduced price “perfect is the enemy of done” versions will only be available until May 11th 2010 at 10am EST.

If you’d rather wait for the final version (which you’ll receive if you purchase now via free updates for a year.) you can sign up for free updates from Far Beyond The Stars via EMAIL or RSS to be notified of the final version’s release.

Thank you for your time, your support, and for being awesome.

Everett Bogue

P.S.: I’ll be online all day to help with any questions you may have. Feel free to drop me an email or visit me on Twitter if you have any questions!