The week’s posts on a single page (most recent at the top):
One
Now that I’ve dragged in content from eight months’ worth of daily blog posts and added it to thoughts, ideas, beliefs and suggestions that I’d stored elsewhere, and slowly honed the purpose and structure of the book, it’s time for me to get the tools out and smash the whole thing into shape.
I’ve currently got a Word doc containing 33,447 words, a bit of duplication and probably some nonsense. Next week, I’ll begin to turn it into a Version 1 that will lend itself to Version 2.
Movin’ On Up
I reckon a massive contributor to living a happy life comes from paying attention to relationships: establishing, nurturing and managing them effectively:
- In business or at work
- With those in authority (I’m looking at you, Kingston and Harrow councils, who’ve both fined me recently for petty motoring offences)
- With those who serve you in restaurants, hotels, launderettes, car washes, shops, pubs and so on
- In your personal life
Clearly, some relationships are more important and longer-lasting than others, and their effective management doesn’t have to mean killing them off or ignoring them completely, pretending they never existed.
But recognising and understanding them – such as a difficult relationship with a parent, for example – in order to accept and improve them where necessary is, I think, crucial to our happiness.
One Way Or Another
As the book I’m putting together takes shape, three sections are emerging:
- An introduction to what the book is, who it’s for and what it’s for
- Some personal stories, adding background and context on why I do what I do
- Stories that’ll hopefully help people when it comes to freelancing and their online work
Making some notes the other night, I was reminded of a book my dad gave me when I was a teenager which is like two books combined:
And now I’m wondering if such a format could a) work for me now, and b) how easy or difficult is it to publish a book with limited resources in this unconventional way, making it possible to read one way or another.
I’ll probably end up publishing it conventionally, to save time and costs. Also, while sections 2 and 3 might turn out to be quite different, they should, I think, be read consecutively.
Good Life
One of my favourite quotes is from Charlie ‘Tremendous’ Jones:
You will be, in five years, who you are today except for the books you read and the people you meet.
I’d add to that:
…and the places you visit.
Some of these things are controllable, some aren’t.
For example, we can’t pick all the people we meet, but we can and do choose some of them.
Books, meanwhile, we pretty much choose every time: you don’t read a book by accident. Takes me ages to read a book, that’s why mine are relatively short.
We should point these things out to kids so that they can be more actively involved in where they’re heading based on the people, books and places they engage with.
California Love
I’ve written before about being able to live and work anywhere in the world, which is a lifestyle we’re seeing more and more of as the economy becomes based on projects that can be served by freelancers.
Location independence, as it’s known, lived by ‘digital nomads’.
So if you choose to live and work anywhere, be it Watford or Wolfsburg, Crewe or California, here’s a list of resources that might help:
Nomadlist.com – ranks towns and cities on factors such as cost of living, internet speed and entertainment options
WeWork – a global network of shared office spaces, soon with 649 locations in 113 cities
AndCo – gives unlimited access to co-working spaces in hotels, bars & restaurants across London and Bristol (a service I use)
Selina.com – community-focused website offering 22,000 beds in private rooms and dorms, mainly in Latin America, plus a few European cities
RemoteYear.com – organises work and travel programmes to far-flung destinations
Digital Nomads Around The World – large Facebook group (106,000 members)
Digital Nomads Nation – provides services including city reviews, job listings, banking advice and dating
Amphetamine
I used to go to quite a few seminars, conferences, networking events and so on, and at one of them, a speaker talked of a concept (which became a book) used by a couple of Olympic rowers:
Will it make the boat go faster?
The idea is simple: they decided that if they were going to put in the effort required to achieve Olympic success, they’d do only the things that would make their boat go faster. Nothing else.
It’s worth applying to any personal goal, too.
Where You Come From
As you might have noticed, this blog, my next book and Mr Lizard all take the same form: titles of posts and chapters are titles of songs I like.
Sometimes they’re songs that I’ve been listening to for decades, and hold real meaning for me, while others are new but have grabbed me.
I think this idea comes from Desert Island Discs on the radio, which I grew up with and now enjoy. But rather than be bound by a small selection of music that matters to you, as on that programme, I like the idea of piecing together as much as possible over time as another form of expression.
And I enjoy reflecting the important role music has always played in my life, from the first record I owned (Showaddywaddy), trying to get a job in the music industry (which led me to shovelling rat poo for no pay) through to working at HMV (loads of fun and where I met Shoelace), then for a music exporter, and now teaching Shiana and Mischa what I know and who I like.
>>>Playlist<<<
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