There are two types of actions in this world: growing actions, and reaching actions. Growing builds mountains, and reaching forms shells. You should grow more often than you reach.

The database* at that business event who immediately hands you his card and pitches his pitch – before even exchanging one authentic line of dialog with you is reaching. The dear friend of yours who gives you advice from time to time on your business is growing.

The entrepreneur who raises VC money to build a “craigslist killer,” because of “market opportunity” rather than to change the world is reaching. The entrepreneur who shares her knowledge to bring customers to her family business is growing.

Growing builds mountains. Reaching forms shells. Mountains are solid, stable. There for eons. Shells are weak, fragile. Soon to be sand.

Work with what you have. Don’t reach. Grow.

*douchebag is such an ugly word.

Mountain Photo from kiwinz

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I saw a talk by Jason Fried a couple of weeks ago, and there was one slide in his presentation that really resonated with me.

You can’t make just one thing.

When you saw a log down into boards, you not only make a board, but you make sawdust. You can then use that sawdust to reinforce concrete – or to clean up puke.

Every day of your life, you are making things. And in making those things, you are making other things. If you go into the kitchen, and cook a meal you haven’t cooked before – even if you make it from a recipe – some new knowledge is being created. Nobody cooks that meal the way you do. Nobody experiences the same tastes you do.

But by virtue of being a human being, the things you do likely are relatable to other human beings. If cooking a meal is the example, it just so happens that all of us eat. So, if you share your unique perspective – this newfound knowledge – it’s likely that someone out there gives a shit. Maybe lots of people do.

If you share all of these byproducts of your experience, most things, very few people will care about. But eventually, a few things that many people do care about will emerge. And those things can serve as a compass to guide you on your journey to an integrated living, and an integrated life.

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Being yourself for a living may not work for the you that you are right now. The old ways of doing things have molded your personality in a way that is incompatible with building an integrated life where work and pleasure are one in the same, friends and colleagues the same as well. The old world has compartmentalized our personalities. Mechanical reproduction and assembly lines have trimmed our talents down to neat little cubes that stack together. You aren’t a cubes. You aren’t a square.

So some of the things that are required to be yourself for a living may not sound like you at first. But these things are inside of you somewhere. You may be better at some of the things than the others. You may be really great at some of the things that you haven’t even tried yet. Here are some assumptions that the BYFL way makes about what every human is capable of.

One: You are social

Humans are social animals, and this is a pretty safe assumption. You may think of yourself as a shy person. It may just be that you haven’t unlocked the motivation to have contact with many people. Interacting with a wide range of people is critical to BYFL. They will be your first customers, whether it’s because they read your blog, or they try your product. They will be a feedback mechanism, an advisory board, a support group.

The social aspect of BYFL isn’t about networking. It’s about appreciating what a beautiful thing it is for someone to be free to pursue those things that arouse their curiousity – and to make a living doing such. Then, it is about recognizing that happening with the people you meet – and celebrating it. Do this, and you will never be lonely.

Two: You enjoy writing – whether you know it yet or not

Writing is as much a process as it is a product. It allows us to understand ourselves, and explore the depths of our minds. The lack of desire to write is usually paralysis caused by external expectations. The bounty that lies within that brain of yours is complex. It is almost laughable to think that it could be expressed in words.

This is why you shouldn’t be afraid of the words you write not making any sense. Write whatever pops into your head. Write about the things that seem so basic to you that they don’t need to be written about. Write nonsense strings of words. Write with no audience in mind. You don’t have to publish but a fraction of what you write. The publishable things will come easier if get the nonsense out first.

Three: You are creative

It’s true, some people are more analytical than they are creative, and vice versa. Creativity is important to BYFL because BYFL requires recognizing opportunities to use new tools in technologies in ways that exploit your passions and talents. Sometimes, you’ll be using these things in ways that they’ve never been used before.

If you really think you’re uncreative, it’s probably because you haven’t needed to be creative. Your whole being has been stuck into a rut, and you need some creativity tips.

Four: You are self-motivated

Some people have ended up in a place where they believe that they need to be told what to do. Where they believe they are not self-motivated. This goes completely against human nature. We are always looking out for ourselves. Even in cases where we are directly trying to help others, we are helping ourselves in some way. Each and every one of us needs intellectual activity, social contact, some sense of importance and attention, and finally – some way to make a living. The people who believe they don’t have it in them to pursue their genuine interests have forgotten their childhoods. In most cases, they had love and support, and no responsibilities – and so their minds were free to play creatively. They were intrinsically motivated. Eventually, obligations built up – many of them imagined – and those then became the motivations that informed their actions.

It’s chicken-and-egg, but those obligations are often built up by the pursuit of things. Let’s not kid ourselves: some things are really nice to have. But when those things cannot be had within an integrated, self-sustaining life, they start to take us over. Requests from our bosses become obligations to our bills, rather than opportunities to grow and feed our curiousities.

So, those are the things that I believe are in you. Are they?

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Of all the things you could possibly care about right now, this post is #1. So, why are you reading it? It’s simple!

Looks like a lot of stuff to do. Just read a list instead!

1. It’s a list. It makes everything seem so simple!
2. It has the number “5″ in the title of the post. What a pretty number. So round and even – yet odd.
3. It will be really easy to read this list, so you’ll feel like you got something done, even though you’re procrastinating.
4. You’re a social media expert, and you found this list on a social media channel, such as those mentioned in #5.
5. Other people read it for the same reasons you did, and then shared it on Twitter, Delicous, Digg, Stumbleupon, Facebook, and Scalewell news.

List photo from Carissa GoodNCrazy

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I remember back in 2001, when I was home from college one summer, I rented quite a few movies. Every time I went to the movie store, the same thing puzzled me: why was there so much space wasted? Many of the independent movies I wanted to watch at the time were hard to come by in Omaha, Nebraska, and the fact that a 3,000 square foot movie store didn’t have enough variety added insult to injury. “Instead of a movie store, it should just be a giant vending machine full of movies.” Nowadays, there are Redbox vending machines in every grocery store, full of movies.

Redbox wasn’t the only company to recognize and attack this waste of resources. NetFlix was clearly way ahead of me in recognizing this, founded in 1997.

This makes me think of another market opportunity I’ve seen emerge. Printing services.

Owning a printer is a complete pain in the ass, and – for most people – it’s really not worth it. Inkjet printers break constantly, and their cartridges are expensive, and dry out. Laser printers are generally too expensive. Not to mention printers are ugly and take up lots of space.

So, I gave up on owning a printer years ago. Even running my own business, I don’t do much printing. I’ve managed to get by without a printer most of the time. On occasion, I have to print something.

So, I send my prints to Kinko’s Docstore. I upload the file, pay, then go pick up the prints a few hours later. It’s much cheaper page-per-page than going to the store and printing. The other day I printed a Groupon (an act which should have been unnecessary), and it cost me 24 cents.

24 cents for a human to receive my file, print it out, along with a page with details on the print job, and stuff it into a bag. The human then diverted his attention from other customers in the store to hand me this bag. A day later, another human called me to make sure that the job had been done right.

Needless to say, FedEx (Kinko’s) didn’t make a profit off of my print job. But, I’m sure such ridiculously trivial jobs are probably more commonplace than they used to be.

I would guess more people are forgoing having home printers. They so rarely need them. More people, now jobless, are starting their own businesses. Their limited capital and time isn’t wisely spent in buying and maintaining a printer.

So, why is there no printing “vending machine.” I send my simple print job to a remote vending machine in my neighborhood (maybe at my local grocery store). It prints it, sends me an email or SMS, and I go pick it up as I run errands. A camera inside could keep records of the printouts to settle disputes over print jobs gone wrong.

It’s printer ownership as a service. The Redbox. The ZipCar. Of printing.

But, there’s assumptions. As digital media downloads will probably kill Redbox, would an eventual elimination of paper kill this machine and business? Do you have a printer? How often do you print? Would you use this?

Redbox photo from saaby

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While the 00’s are being called a lost decade for the US economy, there’s no doubt that it was a decade of incredible changes in technology, communication, and the way we see the world. I’ve compiled a list of my favorite books that define a decade that was full of exciting changes for the world, as well as for myself. I have to admit that sometimes difficult to separate the enormous personal changes I experienced in this decade – which was a coming of age one for me – from those of the world. Fortunately, they aren’t mutually exclusive. So, here they are: the eight books that define the decade, in an order that seemed intuitive to me.

The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual by Christopher Lock et. al.

Written in 1999, and published in 2000, this book was an appropriate introduction to a world-changing decade. It’s a collection of “95 theses” explaining how authentic, global, person-to-person communication would transform the way businesses interact with their customers. Through e-mail, message boards, and blogs (implied though not mentioned), the power behind information distribution would soon be shifting from that of large corporations, to that of individuals – human beings. My favorite thesis: “Markets are Conversations.” This was an exciting book for me to read because it was clear this power shift could change much more than just how business and customers interacted – it was the signal that soon the truth would always be more clear.

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell

This 2000 book was another fitting introduction to a decade because it presented the phenomena that would be the champions of the decade. The “Connectors” and “Mavens” – through blogs, message boards, and social networking sites – would soon be seeing more power to expand their vast networks of acquaintences and validate their expertise; making them the most sought after customers in companies quests to make their products go “viral.” Of course, it would all really depend on the “Stickiness Factor” of said products. This book was important to me not only because it helped me understand how ideas spread, but I found Malcom Gladwell’s style of writing and packaging of concepts to be inspirational, and helpful to observe.

Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen

With the amount of information a person encountered in a given day rising exponentially, a new way of working was needed. In 2002, David Allen published this book, outlining a system of how to route all of that stimuli into a system that allows one to prioritize, delegate, and DO all of the things that need to be done. It was followed with religious fervor, and the whole concept behind the book came to be known as “GTD.” This book spawned countless GTD-related blogs, software tools, and physical-world hacks such as The Hipster PDA Keychain. This was an important book for me because it responded to the pain that I – and I think everyone – felt with managing a tidal wave of information, and the now seemingly endless possibilities that each day presented.

Four Hour Work Week: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, & Join the New Rich by Tim Ferriss

By virtue of our changed ways of accessing, interacting with, and managing information – the way we interacted with our physical world changed as well. With asynchronous communication techonologies such as e-mail and IM – now accessible from the palm of your hand, suddenly the whole concept of needing to be at a particular place at a particular time, just to make a living, started to look more antiquated. By use of the 80/20 rule, outsourcing, and running small tests with technologies like AdWords, Tim Ferriss’s 2007 book showed the world just how far one could stretch their potential. One can automate their income, freeing up time to pursue their passions, all while traveling the world. The bombastic title turned off many people; but I believe this book will stand as a marker in a revolutionary change in the way we work. This was an important book to me because it validated and made more clear just what it was about 9-5 that didn’t make any sense to me.

The Ultimate Question: Driving Good Profits & True Growth by Fred Reichheld

With a good portion of power now undeniably within the grip of the individual, organizations had to change the way they did business. This 2006 book outlined a concept, called Net Promoter Score, that has become a standard metric in today’s top organizations. By asking “The Ultimate Question” of your customers, “how likely are you to recommend X to a friend?” companies can now identify their “promoters” and “detractors,” and link a metric to a customer’s experience in any given interaction with their company. NPS leaders, such as Enterprise Rent-A-Car, innovate on customer experience from the bottom up – distributing ideas developed by the employees that have the closest contact with the customer. This was an important book for me because it was exciting to see how the internet had changed the way top companies viewed their customers.

Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things by William McDonough & Michael Braungart

With most of the basic needs of the American middle class met, and easier and cheaper sharing of information, the environment was a hard issue to ignore. This 2002 book exposed not only the broken industrial system that was (and still is) harming our planet and our health, but the faults in our attempts to fix them (for example, recycling is really “downcycling” – degrading materials each time). Braungart and McDonough promote a Cradle to Cradle concept that employs waste-free systems that make optimal use of “technical nutrients” and “biological nutrients.” This was an important read to me not only because I found it to be practical and realistic approach to a cleaner and healthier environment; but it introduced me to thought frameworks that can be used in other areas to design an integrated lifestyle.

The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan

Yet another book whose popularity was made possible by a shift in power, The Omnivore’s Dilemma called in to question our relationship with one of the most essential – yet underconsidered – sources of life: the food we eat. While America owes much of its success to our access to cheap food, the side-effects are emerging. Food safety issues, obesity, diabetes, and a lack of transparency of where our food comes from are all products of industrial agriculture and public policy that is enmeshed with our apathy toward our relationship with food. In this 2006 book, Michael Pollan dissects the sources of our food to reveal a lack of biodiversity, cultural apathy, and a broken political system. Since publishing this book, Pollan has published In Defense of Food, and appeared in the movie Food, Inc. and concern for the source of our food has become a mainstream topic. This book was important to me because it opened my eyes to the link between what I eat, and how I feel.

What is the What? by Dave Eggers

Through 9/11, the internet, and increased gobal travel, this decade brought us more awareness of the people with whom we share this world, and brought life to the inequities that were once nothing but news headlines. What is the What?, a 2006 novel written by Dave Eggers is a product and reflection of that. It follows the life of Sudanese refugee, Valentino Achak Deng from boyhood as his village is ransacked by the murahaleen, and as he walks through Sudan, Ethiopia, and Kenya, suffering and witnessing unbelievable horrors and losses. Accounts of his days in Africa are interspersed with stories of his subsequent struggles in America as a member of the Lost Boys of Sudan program. This book was important to me because the accounts of Deng’s experiences were a conduit through which to understand the suffering that exists in the world. It was humbling to read, and made me not only appreciate my life; but it reinforced my belief that we rarely have as much to lose as we think we do.

I think the 00’s will be remembered as a decade when everything we take for granted about how we live our lives was called into question. The models for how we access, understand, and distribute information were violently disrupted, exposing the now obsolete frameworks within which we live our lives. In the 10’s we will rebuild those frameworks.

I’m looking forward to rebuilding with you in the 10’s.

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I recently saw a piece by Jason Fried about how he works, and I found it pretty interesting. To truly be yourself for a living, you have to find a work style that makes the most of your natural ways of operating. I think I’ve developed some eccentric but effective working habits over the past few years, so I thought I would be fun to share them similarly.

What it is – I DO here

That is definitely not my coffee.

First, just what it is that I do probably needs some explanation. I’m President and Owner of Kadavy, Inc., which is an S-Corporation that houses my web design consulting services, as well as media properties, such as kadavy.net, Flatmate Meetup, and my share of nom.ms. The ultimate path of this company is not to be a web design consultancy, but I do enjoy that part of the business. Over this past year, Kadavy, Inc.’s revenues have been almost entirely from the web design consultancy, but I project that to change drastically over the next few years.

I choose my web design clients very carefully. My specialty is working with startups because that’s what I get connected with most through my network – and they tend to have progressive work styles. Thus, oDesk Corporation is one of my best clients. I prefer clients who are well-versed at communicating remotely, and are good at collaborating on written thought processes through collaborative documents such as Google Documents, or text-based communication such as Instant Messenger.

I find most meetings to be unproductive. I am many times more effective when I’m able to think independently in an environment that is within my control, than when trying to labor through a thought process with other people on the fly. I find that meetings and discussions have their place when it comes to exploration, but that really making decisions happens more effectively when all of the stakeholders get a chance to process all of the influencing factors and make an informed decision – or better yet, just respect one another’s roles and powers of judgement. This is of course the exception rather than the rule, but I manage to find clients who work this way once in awhile. Those clients, I cherish.

Kadavy, Inc. HQ

I work at home, by myself. I have a small one-bedroom apartment (plus sunroom) in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago. I use the tiny sunroom as my bedroom. The bed barely fits in this room, and that’s fine with me. It gets a little chilly, but I have a heated mattress pad. I use what is supposed to be the bedroom as my office so I have more space for working. I used to rent an office space with some friends who have their own consulting businesses. It was valuable early on when I needed the mentoring, but the utility eventually wore off, and it got expensive.

I have an IKEA Jerker desk and Aeron chair because together, they can be adjusted to an ergonomic setup for me. My MacBook Pro sits on a laptop stand – again for ergonomics. I mouse with my left hand (more on that later), and use my Wacom Tablet with my right hand. When I’m at my home office, I hook up my laptop to a 20″ Dell Monitor. I bought the desk, chair, and monitor used on Craigslist, mostly using notifications.

I thought that working at home alone would get to me mentally, but it hasn’t yet. It makes it all the better and more motivating to get me out of the house once in awhile, and since socializing is part of my business model (more on that later), that is a good thing.

Starting the day

On a typical morning, my alarm is set on my iPhone timer for 8:18am (setting my alarm for an unusual time is more than a decade old tradition for me). I hit the snooze bar numerous times, and try to really make it out of bed before 10am. In a perfect world, I would meditate first thing in the morning and do some yoga; but I’m unfortunately not quite that disciplined. So, most days, I immediately go into my office and do some work for an hour or so.

The work I’ll do depends upon what I have going on. If I’m in the middle of a billable project, I’ll try to hit that for a bit before I check any e-mail at all. More often, I’ll process e-mail first thing. I immediately archive as many e-mails as I can, and mark as unread the ones that are actionable that it isn’t appropriate to get to at that moment. I loosely subscribe to the Inbox Zero system, and at any given moment, I’m unlikely to have more than 7 e-mails in my inbox. I use Mail.app much more than the web version of Gmail. As great as it is, I don’t get how people can live in the web version of Gmail. Mail is so much more nimble for searching and managing e-mails with keyboard shortcuts for me.

If it hasn’t been determined for me already, I’ll try to get a clear picture of what the day holds for me and write it down on an index card, or write it up in VooDooPad. I practically live in VooDooPad. I’ve heard good things about Evernote, but haven’t gotten around to checking it out because VooDooPad works so well for me. I have a separate document for every project, and every property within Kadavy, Inc. I use it for brainstorming, record keeping, and project management. I find loose text to be the most agreeable format with which to plan, and I can fortunately get away with it since I usually work pretty independently. Even when I work on collaborative documents, I write in VooDooPad first. I often do the same for e-mails. This blog post was drafted in VooDooPad.

Once I have a good idea of what the day has in store for me, I’ll start eating some breakfast. By this time, my AntiRSI has probably already kicked in. It’s a program that monitors my computer usage to remind me to take breaks. I’ve been in some employment situations where I didn’t have the opportunity to take breaks, and I paid the price with RSI bad enough that I now mouse with my left hand. That’s cleared up since I started being more disciplined with taking breaks, but I don’t want to be in that situation again. As an added benefit, the program usually reminds me to take breaks just as my temples start to tense up, and I’m not thinking as clearly anyway.

Kadavy, Inc. is what it eats

Eating right is very important to my business since I’m the only employee. It has a huge effect on my mood, my ability to focus mentally, and since the Kadavy, Inc. health insurance plan sucks, that’s extra incentive. I’ll usually have some granola, some plain yogurt (or rice drink), and some fresh fruit for breakfast. Additionally, I’ll have some whey protein shake (by far the most processed thing that I eat), some Omega-3 pills, and Dr. Weil multivitamins.

Overall, I have pretty unusual eating habits. I discovered a few years ago that I’m better off without wheat, and that really opened up my eyes to the connection between what I eat and how I think and feel. So, I don’t eat bread, I only eat gluten-free pasta. I go easy on the meat and dairy, but have determined that it’s pretty tough to have a balanced diet without at least a little of both of those. I eat almost no processed or sugary foods. I quit drinking soda over a dozen years ago. I don’t drink coffee (I’m too sensitive to caffeine, and “just don’t want to get involved”). I don’t drink juice (too much sugar). I pretty much just drink tons of water, and quite a bit of tea. I have been on a big Chamomile tea kick because I tend to have quite a bit of energy, and it makes me more calm and focused. I’m interested to try this gyokuro tea that Jason Fried has written about because it has an amino acid that synergizes with caffeine to increase focus.

So what do I eat? I try to buy as much as I can from the Farmer’s Market that I live nearby. The food tastes amazing, you can really feel the better nutrition, and I like knowing where my food is coming from, and where my money is going. I also occassionally order nuts such as raw unsalted almonds or cashews, in bulk, from nutsonline.com. When I cook at home, I eat lots of vegetables and brown rice or quinoa. When I eat out, it’s lots of Thai, or Mexican (tacos, since they are corn, rather than flour, tortillas).

Back to work

After (or while) I’m eating breakfast, I’ll do a little more work. I’ll act on what e-mails I can, or if I’m not super busy, I’ll check out what’s up on Twitter. I really love Twitter, and when I get a chance, I actively seek out people whom I can help on there, because I certainly get lots of help from the Twitter ecosystem.

My favorite work is pouring over Analytics, analyzing CrazyEgg clicks, or running and analyzing Google Website Optimizer tests. I also love messing around in Google’s Keyword tool, where I often find keywords that I can use to improve the traffic numbers on my web properties, or to get ideas for new content that I can compete on. I have to be careful with myself on this, because it’s very easily to burn hours on this that don’t wind up being effective. I try to keep myself in check, making sure that I progress towards decisions that will make a real difference for my business.

Thanks to Jelly - I don't have much of a bald spot.

Play and exploration are a huge part of my business model. There are such huge changes afoot in the way we do everything, that you’ll surely get left behind if you are too goal-oriented and don’t exercise your creativity and invite serendipity into your business. A critical component of this exploration is socializing. On most Mondays and Wednesdays, I head to a nearby cafe called Noble Tree to casually cowork (or “mowork” as I stubbornly call it) with a group called Jelly. We have several regulars, and a pretty steady stream of newcomers. Every time I go, I have some sort of “ah-ha” moment from a conversation I have with someone there. There are a bunch of entrepreneurs that come and we really help each other out. It’s almost as if we have equity in each other’s companies simply by virtue of being in the same community. I’ve made more authentic and rewarding business relationships through Jelly and other informal social interactions than I could ever have in an office, where relationships are tainted by false incentives.

I’ve melded this socializing component with continuing education in a group called DIYMBA. We initially formed as a group to read (real) business books, and discuss them; but soon realized we shared good resources in the contacts that we had. So, once a month, we gather for brunch and have a different business person join us. It’s very casual. We pick their brains, then we discuss our challenges with our own businesses. The best part of the group is that we’ve limited the number of members, so we’re comfortable discussing stuff that we wouldn’t be as comfortable discussing if the group changed month to month.

I can’t stress enough how important social capital is to me and my business. It sounds silly to talk about it that way, as if I was saying the word “networking” (a word I can’t stand). I really get a rush out of talking to people who have made a sustainable living out of their passions, interests, and experiences – or who at least have the courage to try. I can actually feel the blood in my veins pump harder just when I think about it. I’ve seen lots of people grow and become successful in this way, and it excites me to no end to imagine how many more of my friends will have done so in 5 or 10 years. Social capital takes a long time to appreciate; but when it does, it’s explosive.

Play and exploration also includes obeying my curiousity in endeavors that don’t have any clear immediate purpose. As Steve Jobs says “you can’t connect the dots moving forward,” and I heed this wisdom, because kadavy.net started on what seems like a whim, and has brought me more enjoyment and success than I anticipated. Lately, I’ve felt very compelled to create video content on my YouTube channel. In pursuit of my impulses – which has incidentally improved the quality of this content – I’ve taken improv classes, script writing classes, and acting classes. It seems like most video bloggers are more likely to spend $1000 on a great video camera, rather than on an acting class; and I think this is a mistake. I challenge myself in my video content to produce it with the simplest tools possible (iSight and iMovie). I’ll upgrade if and when someone gives a shit – which, at about 50 channel subscribers, is not currently the case. If I can’t produce content compelling enough for this to happen, then I can’t justify the upgrade.

Into the night

Some nights, I am abducted by UFOs

Whether it’s a day I go to Jelly or not, I continue to work until I go to bed. Now, I don’t mean non-stop: usually, I’ll have dinner with a friend, and we’ll discuss our work, or I’ll have a class. If I am not working or doing one of those things, I may take a break to cook, or to play my guitar (I’ve been writing some music – another exploratory endeavor); but I’ll usually continue working afterward. If I feel like I need some relaxation and am doing work that’s compatible with it, I’ll put 30 Rock or The Office on Hulu while I work. I listen to different music for different moods, but nothing beats soft lighting and Ryan Adams’s “Gold” for a late-night work session. Occasionally, I’ll read some fiction before I go to sleep, which is usually around 2 or 3am. I really prefer biographical fiction because real experiences are more interesting to me. I’ve enjoyed David Sedaris, Dave Eggers…other authors who aren’t also named David.

I do all of the work for my business. If there is something very technical – like writing a web app from scratch – that I can’t handle, I may hire someone out; but other than that I do everything. Client relations, design, coding, bookkeeping, SEO, writing, tweeting. I’ve tried outsourcing for some small tasks before, but I couldn’t justify it. If money is pouring in and I’m swamped, then I’ll definitely be hiring help. Such is not currently the case. I do hire a CPA to help with my taxes, though.

My work style goes through some intense seasonal changes. The social component of my work is stronger in the summer, and in the coldest and darkest winter months, I’ll usually get really intensely involved in learning new things. I lived in and around San Francisco for three years, and while it was a tremendous period of growth for me, I really missed the inclimate weather, which I have to thank for the majority of any technical skill or knowledge I have. Growing up, going to school, and working in the midwest before SF, I was very productive in the winters. It feels strange to admit, but there’s also something I get out of feeling like I have to survive something – like I have something to fight against. Because that’s the reality of it when you’re in the early stages of entrepreneurship. It’s as if California has too much optimism for me at this point. Not enough reality.

Along with eating well, getting exercise is also important to my work. It’s as much for my mind as it is for my body. When the weather is nice, I get a good deal of exercise from riding my bike around town. I know it’s dangerous, but transportation in America is just absurd enough to make it worth it for me; and I gravitate toward an integrated lifestyle (transportation & exercise at the same time = good). I try to get to Yoga class once a week, which does incredible things for my mood and mental clarity – I really should go more often. If I haven’t managed to do either of the aforementioned, I’ll go jogging. I set my iPhone timer for 15 minutes, use the timer to keep my heart rate in the right range, and when the timer goes off, I set it again, and start jogging back home.

Your write

Writing is my most important activity, which is ironic to me, because my whole career started with wanting to get paid to draw for a living – and I had no interest whatsoever in writing. Writing allows me to express my thoughts and ideas, yet at the same time, acts as a compass because of the rapid feedback that the internet provides. I write about a thought or solution, and if my Analytics, blog comments, and Twitter replies tell me so, I’ll consider digging deeper on that topic. It’s as much a medium of discovery and self-definition as it is of expression.

Even if I am designing something, I can hardly bring myself to do so without writing a great deal about the project first. I need to know the business objectives, brainstorm approaches, collect competitive data, before I design anything. I do this for internal Kadavy, Inc. projects as much as I do for client work.

I also write just to organize my own thoughts and feelings. The medium that I use depends greatly on the nature of the writing. Cursive writing in a Moleskine for more personal writing – or for critical thinking away from the computer, VooDooPad for more business-oriented writing, VooDooPad again for spewing random thoughts that aren’t likely to see the light of day. I also have a whiteboard I made out of tileboard in my office for when my thoughts call for sketching to accompany my writing. I find that using larger muscles in my body to write and draw alters the way I think about an approach.

So, that is the way I work, which could probably also be entitled “the way I live,” but as you can see, there isn’t a huge difference. Somehow this reached over 3,000 words, so if you read all the way to here, you get a cookie.

Photo of Kadavy, Inc. at a cafe is from a Chicago Tribune article on Foursquare, as syndicated by Lakeland, FL’s Ledger.

Photo of Kadavy, Inc. being abducted by a UFO is by Ryan Halvorsen.

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There are plenty of ways to tie a winter scarf; but after a friend showed me this method, I don’t think I’ll ever tie a scarf another way again. Most scarf tying methods I’ve found are bulky and uneven; but this method yields a knot that distributes the mass of the scarf evenly. So, it looks dandy underneath your winter coat.

Step 1: hang the scarf behind your neck. Position the scarf so that the majority of the length of the scarf hangs over your right shoulder, leaving a shorter length over your left shoulder.

Hangin' out.

Step 2: cross the short end of the scarf over the long end. Hopefully you still have plenty of length on the long end, because you’ll be needing it.

Don't cross me. Cross your scarf.

Step 3: wrap the long end of the scarf around the back of your neck. Hold onto some of the length to leave a loop. You’ll be using that loop!

Kadavy, Inc. is not responsible for accidental hangings.

Step 4: feed the long end of the scarf back through it’s own loop. Remember that loop you made in Step 3? That loop.

Slam dunk!

Step 5: pull both ends. Hopefully both ends are of equal length. If not, no biggie, just try again, adjusting the lengths of scarf accordingly.

Kadavy, Inc. is not responsible for accidental decapitations.

Step 6: look awesome. You’re welcome. You have now tied a perfect scarf. Have a nice winter.

Want a video demonstration? Well, here ya go:

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Wouldn’t it be nice to be yourself for a living? You would spend every moment doing something you wanted to be doing. You would personally like and care about every person with whom you interacted; and they would feel the same way about you. You would be where you wanted to be, when you wanted to be there. Yet magically, every one of those actions, and every one of those relationships, would operate within a beautiful system that gave you financial security, and an overall happy, healthy, and wealthy life.

It’s called Being Yourself for a Living; and while it’s been done before – but reserved to those of massive celebrity and resources – it’s becoming more feasible for more people each and every day. Technology has brought us channels that allow us to express our unique personalities, to share our unique knowledge and experiences, and to explore our curiousities.

You may have just one burning passion. Some may say that BYFL will be easier for you; but not necessarily. In today’s world, boundless curiousity is once again an asset. You’ll have to know a little HTML at the least. The Renaissance Person is back.

It will start with a blurry flurry of snowflakes. “You lack focus.” But eventually those snowflakes stick together. Technology has brought us feedback mechanisms by which to see just which of those snowflakes stick. You now have a snowball, and the ground upon which you stand has been blanketed. Start rolling!

Hi, my name is Kadavy, Inc.. What is your name?

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The SXSW panel picker is live for the 2010 SXSW Interactive conference. This year, I submitted the panel idea, How to Fuck Up Properly, where we’ll explore just how integral failure actually is to success; and how to tell the difference between failure, and lack of follow through. It will be a great panel, and I promise not to fuck it up; but, it can’t happen without your vote. Please vote now!

I already have a couple of amazing panelists in mind:

David Weekly: Had a number of small ventures before building PBwiki (now PBworks), which “had more attention in two weeks than [his] year-and-a-half old project.” More on that in a presentation by him.

Paul Bragiel: Founded Meetro, a location-based IM client. Then, shut it down and took the lessons learned, and the same team, to then build Lefora.com – a hosted forum solution.

Please provide your input in the comments section of the panel picker. Who else is an expert on fucking up?

When you’re done voting, tweet this:

Find out “How to Fuck Up Properly” in @kadavy’s SXSW panel. Vote for it here: http://tr.im/wMDL

Other Panels of Interest

Online workteam building and management platform, oDesk is heading up an interesting panel on remote-work best practices, called Kill Your Cubicle.

Online dating advice expert Russ Ruggles plans to explain his theories in a presentation called How to Get a Date Online.

Go vote! Thanks for your support!

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I believe we are deep in “The Age of Maybe“. Chances are, you have hundreds of Facebook friends, and thus many social engagements that you are invited to through Facebook, evite, or Meetup. With social connections so much looser than they once were, it makes RSVPing Maybe to these things very easy to do. You want to see who else will be going. You want to see if something better will be going on that day. You probably won’t admit that these are the reasons why, but at any rate, you RSVP Maybe.

At least you have the guts to RSVP as such, rather than just flaking. In my experience, events I’ve attended or held usually have at least a 25% flake factor. If 30 people have RSVPed “Yes” (in which case, probably 15 have RSVPed “Maybe” ) then approximately 7.5 of them won’t show up. So, you’ll have 7.5 people’s worth of leftover chips and dips.

Maybe really has its virtues. Maybe allows us to find just what we want in life. We can Maybe our way through our days, making contact with thousands of people, hundreds of career opportunities, dozens of parties, a handful of lovers. Maybe is a date. Yes is a marriage. Maybes makes stronger Yeses.

Maybe I shouldnt have skipped so much class in college

Maybes have been made more abundant by the internet. We don’t have to restrict our friends to those who live on our block, go to our same school, who work with us, or attend the same church (if we go). We can seek out others with similar interests and lifestyles with unprecedented efficiency. I think that this is good.

Eventually, you’ve Maybed enough. If you’re a chronic Mayber, people will start to catch on. You cancel dinner with your friend because you have to work late. You miss someone’s birthday party because it’s raining, and you don’t want to go outside. Maybe will poison your relationships. Try denying yourself Maybe for just a little bit. Commit to that party, even though it’s three weeks away. Keep that drink appointment with a friend, even though you’re tired and have to get up early tomorrow. If you’ve Maybed your way long enough to fill your life with good things, you’ll find that Yes makes those bonds stronger.

I have a “no Maybes” brunch group. There’s a set number of people who can be in the group at any time. We have a special guest every meeting. There are other people who are interested in attending, so if you aren’t showing up, we’ll give your spot to one of them. You’re out. No can build as strong of bonds as Yes.

Just say No to Maybe.

–

Woman photo by mkorchia. Dog photo by mudpig.

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Remember when I was testing the waters to see if there was interest in a DIYMBA group? Well, there was plenty of interest. Some were more interested than others. Those in the latter group and I started a DIY MBA group. Here’s what it consists of so far:

• Six select members, all of us entrepreneurs in Chicago.
• We read books on our own – based on the challenges we each face as business owners. Sometimes they are from the Personal MBA list, sometimes not.
• We meet for brunch one Saturday a month at a swanky place in The Loop, and invite a business leader from a particular field of expertise to join us each time and talk about their experiences.
• We keep each other updated on what we’re reading, and how it’s helping us with our businesses.

Sorry to say, but you’re not invited. There’s a ton of people we wish we could include in the group – but won’t. Here’s why we’re keeping the group small:

• Having a safe place to share confidential information about our businesses enhances the learning experience. This is really a big one.
• The waitstaff already hates us for putting down 6 credit cards at each brunch. Six is enough.
• In today’s world of bloated invite lists, “maybe” RSVP’s, and no-shows, it’s nice to know who is going to be there each time. We have stronger relationships within the group this way.

That said, I encourage you to start your own DIY MBA group, and I’ll do whatever I can to help you if you do. If you do, we would be very interested to hear how you run your group. Further down the road we can share resources and ideas, and maybe even find a way to join forces.

Some books/resources I/we have found useful:

• Harvard Business Essentials books. Right now I’m reading Finance For Managers
• The Ten-Day MBA
• Business Models Made Easy. What does that phrase that gets thrown around The Valley so much really mean?
• Harvard Business Review. Way more substance than those mags that are more fashion than they are business.
• John Bain & Company Interview Preparation. “Crack the Case” quizzes that show you how a top consulting firm thinks.
• SCORE Free Small Business Counselors in your area.

Related posts:

1. The Age of “Maybe”

Remember my Eight Life Hacks for Health Wealth & Happiness? Well, Brea Grant has made her own list of things to do to keep your life happy and simple.I love it! The summary is: Compliment Someone, Swap Mix CDs With a Friend, Water Yourself, Create a List and Complete it, and Grow Something. Check out Brea’s full post to see what all of that means.

I really need to Compliment Someone more often, and I’ve found that Grow Something is very relaxing, too. Though, it sucks when your plants die.

I want to see more lists! So:

• Sean Johnson
• Laura Roeder
• Mary Campbell
• Dave Ferguson
• Fayza
• Patty Huber
• Ze Frank
• Pek Pongpaet

What are Eight* simple things that make you feel like you’re cheating the system? Blog it, put it on a Facebook note, better yet, make a video and get Eight* people to do the same. Like an item on someone else’s list? Go ahead and include it on yours.

Are you not on the list? Do it anyway. What are your Eight Life Hacks?

* or 2, or 5, or 300 – you get the idea.

——–

Lemon photo by Lori Greig

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One of the Eight Life Hacks for Health, Wealth, and Happiness is to Buy Used. But, sometimes this can be tough. Really hot items can go fast off of Craigslist, and then there’s the rarer items – how are you to know when they show up? It can be tempting to just go to the store and buy that food processor you need; but what about all of those food processors out there that need new homes? Here’s a video showing you how I get a text message notification when new items I want show up on Craigslist:

Here’s the summary:

• Search on Craigslist for the item you want, and do the appropriate neighborhood filtering.
• Click on the “RSS” icon at the bottom of the search results.
• Copy and paste the URL for the RSS feed into Pingie.com (if you’re on Safari, you’ll have to change the “feed://” at the beginning of the URL to “http://”) Of course, you’ll have to enter your phone number, carrier, and e-mail address as well.
• Next time an item shows up with your search criteria, you’ll get a text message or e-mail notification, and hopefully – just what you were looking for!

I love buying items off of Craigslist because 1) it’s cheaper, 2) it’s good for the environment, 3) you can find more interesting stuff, and 4) I even make friends in the process!

Check out the rest of the Eight Life Hacks for Health Wealth and Happiness

Related posts:

1. What are your Eight Life Hacks?

Inspired by the great pictures of food that people tweet using services such as TwitPic, myself and some friends have collaborated on nom.ms, a photo-sharing site especially for food lovers. With nom.ms, you can Tweet what you eat – and share recipes and restaurant info – simply by sending a photo of some food to new@nom.ms. And to sign up – well, do the same thing: send a photo of a dish to new@nom.ms. Once you get your nom.ms account hooked up to your Twitter account (we wouldn’t dream of asking for your Twitter password), we’ll start tweeting the subject line of your e-mail. The body will be used as a description for your nomm. Start nomming some nomms today, and tell your friends so you can nomm nomms with them, too!

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I’m overwhelmingly proud to celebrate kadavy.net’s 5th blogiversary today. While this blog certainly hasn’t accomplished as much as many out there in this length of time, starting it was still one of the best “decisions” I ever made. I’m not sure whether to call it a decision, because it was more of an impulse; but I’ve learned over the years that it’s such things that become the most worthwhile. This is a valuable lesson that I wish I would have learned sooner.

It all started with a Blogger account (I’ve since migrated platforms twice). I still get a kick out of reading the first blog post:

Okay, I’m finally trying out this blog thing. I don’t really have any particular intentions for this blog, except to ramble (and perhaps inform) about design, web design and the like. I looked around and saw some very impressive blogs all organized into categories and I was pretty intimidated…only to find out blogger.com seems to make all of that pretty easy. I’m glad I decided to just jump into it. I have a tendancy (sic), when I’m learning something new, to try to take in every detail of something before I attempt it. The result is a sort of paralysis. So, since I don’t know much about blogging yet, and it seems there is a decent amount to know, I’m just going to barf this out and clean it up later.

My favorite part is where I say “I’m just going to barf this out.” It’s amazing how a tiny little snowflake of an impulse can snowball into something greater. When I started this blog, so many people in my life were downright confused as to why I would put my precious evenings, weekends, and even an entire week of vacation time, into doing essentially the same thing I did for a living (I’m not sure if that sounds strange to people – but if it does: keep in mind, I grew up in Nebraska, which I connect to the fact that almost nobody surrounding me had genuine interests or passions that they actively pursued). I had no explanation for them – nor for myself – other than that I couldn’t think of not wanting to do this. I felt a sensation not unlike hunger in the pit of my stomach, and restless urgency in the first knuckles of my fingers.

But it’s those things for which you can stay up until 4am – those things that make you get out of bed in the middle of the night because you can’t get them out of your head – that are most worth pursuing. Having this blog provided a place where I could do things my way. Whenever I may have been coerced throughout the work day to cut corners and sacrifice quality – or to not take risks – to not let things be fun, there was always the blog. Through this blog, not only did I hone professional skills that enabled me to escape the cornfields of Nebraska to work in the richest entrepreneurial environment in the world, I was also able to unlock an undiscovered passion for writing, for sharing knowledge, and – in turn – helping others.

I’m still hungry and restless; but to me this is much more than just a blog. It serves as a reminder that you can’t connect the dots moving forward. You have to have a mound of clay (or barf) before you can make a sculpture people. Barf it out!

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In an effort to give my poor little fingers a break, I’ve started producing some video. It’s a little show called 8 Things This Week, and it’s already on it’s second episode.

So, to all of you kadavy.net subscribers (I love you, BTW): yeah, sorry for not telling you sooner, but you probably already know if you’re following me on Twitter. No, sorry (or don’t worry – depending on how you look at it), I won’t be updating you here every time a new episode comes out. Please subscribe to my YouTube channel, where you’ll see the show, as well as a few bonus videos here and there.

From any given episode of 8 Things This Week, you can expect to get a cool tip or two, some random observations from my week, and an amusing song; and hopefully a laugh or two. Please pass it on to your friends, let me know what you like, let me know what sucks, and let me know if you want me to just stop altogether.

The first two episodes are below:

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Tonight is my 30th birthday party at the Kadavy, Inc. Headquarters in Chicago. I’ll be shaving my beard off, live on ustream, in stages, starting about 8pm CST.Here’s a video on how to submit your beard designs. Maybe you think I need mutton chops. Maybe a handlebar mustache. Maybe a soul patch.

Here’s some general instructions:

• Make/find your beard design. Draw a picture on my face with skitch. Or just find an nice beard pic on the web. Just have some visual representation you can link to.
• Submit your design. Twitter an @reply to @kadavy, and add the hashtag #kadavy30
• Tune in to see what designs win.

Also, you can use this template, designed by Arlo:

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I love social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, but they send an awful lot of notification e-mails. I get an e-mail every time someone comments on my blog; I get an e-mail every time someone follows me on Twitter. On my birthday, I got 63 e-mails from Facebook! Now, I’m not complaining about getting birthday wishes, and I like to review these other e-mails from time to time; but filtering them into little folders off to the side of my inbox is just too distracting. I want my inbox to have IMPORTANT STUFF in it, and I don’t want the tempation to poke around in these little folders every once in awhile.

I know that I can save myself alot of time and distraction if I just put these e-mails somewhere far, far away, so I’m going to filter them to an entirely new account. Then, I can set up a schedule to manage them in “batches”. Maybe I’ll check the account once a day, maybe three times a week. Maybe once a week. What’s important is that they will be far away from the more important e-mails that go directly into my inbox.

If e-mails from social networking sites are distracting you I’m going to show a special trick to get them out of your way. Check out this screencast.

Related posts:

1. Save Kadavy: Facebook Disabled My Account

Isn’t it supposed to be fun? Remember when it was fun? Remember the freshness? The serendipity. The discovery. Enjoyment. Doing and not expecting, not anticipating. Not even hoping. Because you want to. Need to. Can’t help it. Who cares why! Then. Magic. Discovery. Fireworks! Superness!  Who knew!? How is this happening? How can it happen more? Make it happen more. Process. Care. Tweaking. Researching. Repetition. Discipline. Repetition. Goals. Eyeballs. Risk.

Paralysis.

Remember when it was fun?

Make it fun again.

——

Fun photo by -Gep-

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