We arrived the day after a big snowstorm, so the kids enjoyed playing in the snow (in their dresses and flip flops), and we made a little snowman and had a short snowball fight without gloves. Snow is one thing the kids have really missed living in Costa Rica. It did look really beautiful on the mountains, and I was glad I didn’t have to drive in it.

Tragedy in Japan

While there, I heard about the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. My heart went out to those who are suffering, and I spent some time researching organizations to donate through, so I could feel like I was contributing in some way. I looked up several charities on CharityNavigator.com and decided on Americares, which puts 99% of its revenue toward program expenses.

What I’d really like from a charity, though, is to be able to see how my money helped specific individuals. On such a grand scale, it’s probably difficult to do this, but SeeYourImpact.com is the closest thing I have found, and I donate to them ocassionally. Unfortunately, they’re not setup to take donations for Japan at the moment, so I went with Americares this time.

A few people have asked me if this earthquake will deter us from traveling there later this or next year. My answer is absolutely not! First of all, we never really planned to go up north to the affected areas. But second, I believe that Japan will recover very quickly from this disaster. If any country is prepared for earthquakes and tsunamis, and knows how to handle itself in a crisis, it’s Japan.

Progress on my book

Since my business was highlighted by Tim Ferriss on his popular blog, I’ve received over a dozen e-mails from people who are thinking about or are in the process of creating their own businesses. It’s been fun hearing their stories and answering their questions. And it’s made me realize that there are a lot of people out there who are trying to do what I have done, and who want some guidance. There are also a lot of people who are considering creating a business, but have no idea where to even start.

Of course, it sounds like a dream to some that you could earn over $25,000/month working just 5 hours per week, but I really do. In fact, I expect to be making about double that by the end of this year, with no increase in my work hours. But please understand – it has taken a HUGE amount of work to get to this point, over a period of about 5 years. I also believe that it’s possible for anyone to create a successful business if they’re willing to put forth the effort and go about it in a smart way.

There’s a rumor going around that 90% of businesses fail, or only 10% succeed. I have made three attempts at creating businesses, and have succeeded at all three – a 100% success rate. My advice is, ignore statistics and don’t follow the 90% who are doing it wrong.

As you may know, I’ve been working on a book about how to create a self-sustaining on-line business. It’s been a slow process, and I’ve stopped and started a few times, wondering if the world really needs another business book. But with the encouragement I’ve received, I realize that I do have something unique to offer, even if it’s just sharing my experience in how I created my business and lifestyle, and what I’ve learned in the process.

So I’m picking up the pace again with my book. I think I’m about 70% finished with my first major draft. I can’t really tell at this point exactly when I’ll be done, and I have no idea how long the editing process will take, but I hope to have it completely finished and available by the end of this year (2011).

Your Questions Answered – I Need Your Help

In the book, I’m trying to write about the topics that would have helped me the most as I created my business, and I want to make sure I cover the most common questions of new entrepreneurs. However, since I’m only one person, and everyone is starting from a different place, I need some help knowing what those questions are.

So far, I’m planning to address issues like how to come up with an idea, how to know if your idea is a good one, how to outsource effectively, how to get the word out about your product, how to structure your business legally, and more, including some chapters on finance and productivity. But I want to make sure I don’t forget anything important, or leave out little details that would make a big difference to someone.

So, if you are thinking about starting a business, or are interested in reading my book, I would really appreciate it if you’d take a minute to post in the comments below (or send me an e-mail), telling me what questions or issues you’d like the book to address. I want this book to be as thorough as it can be, so it can help as many people as possible. Thanks in advance for taking the time to help with your feedback.

Share and Enjoy

Share and Enjoy

Fall colors in Utah

Our kids have loved seeing their cousins, and have gone trick-or-treating, ice skating, jumping in piles of leaves, and playing all sorts of games with them. They’ve also had a lot of fun with the toys and dress-ups at Grandma’s house, where we’ve been staying. Our kids are a lot less shy around new friends as well, since they all speak English here!

Baby Number Three

One announcement we had fun making this week was that we recently discovered that we are pregnant with our third child! We found out while we were in Florida, and calculated that we probably conceived around the time we were at Machu Picchu, so we expect the baby to be born around the end of June, 2011.

Since we haven’t been able to get pregnant for 4 years, this came as quite a surprise, and has thrown us for a bit of a loop in our travel plans. At first I was in denial – I didn’t want to have to deal with trying to fit 5 in a hotel room built for 4, and drive a larger car that can fit three car seats comfortably. Then comes the increased cost of airfare, and having to go back to the whole diaper changing bit… <grumble> But we’re getting more used to the idea, and we’re sure this will be a wonderful change and adventure in our lives! We’re hoping for a boy.

Halloween with cousins

Jennifer has a tendency to deliver babies very quickly. Our last baby was born 9 minutes after we got to the hospital! So we’re planning on a home birth this time, with a midwife. We’re not sure where we want to live when the baby is born. Costa Rica is great, but we have to leave every 90 days to renew our visa, which will be more difficult in the third trimester and when the baby is very young. We could come back to the states (California? Hawaii?), but since some countries grant citizenship simply for being born there, we thought that might be a great gift to give our child. I’m currently using oDesk (my favorite outsourcing site) to have someone put together a list of countries for me, with visa requirements, citizenship opportunities, cost of a midwife and a maid, healthcare quality, and more. Hopefully this will help narrow down our options. If you have any suggestions for a good place to have a baby, and our home for most of 2011, please post them in the comments.

Celebrate Your Life

Last weekend, Jennifer and I left our kids with my fabulous sister to attend the Celebrate Your Life Conference in Phoenix, Arizona. We had a great time being together, met some wonderful people, and had plenty of time to think and talk. Many of the sessions were very interesting. I learned some great tips on how to make decisions by choosing the option that brings you the most joy, how to discover your purpose, and follow your heart and be more in tune to the little promptings you feel. I also realized from listening to a book publisher for several hours, that most publishers seem to offer so little compared to what they expect the author to do. So I will probably be self-publishing my book on how to create a self-sustaining on-line business, once I finish it. Maybe I’ll do something similar to what Leo Babauta did on his awesome new book, Focus. (It’s a free read, so check it out!)

We also heard a couple speakers (I won’t mention names) that to me appeared to be deceiving people. I don’t have a problem if someone claims they can talk to spirits or angels, but when they call people out of the audience, and use obvious cold reading techniques and vague guesses to make it appear they know something they don’t, playing on the people’s emotions, it amazes me that so many people fall for it. Okay, I’ll admit it’s great entertainment, and these people are very good at it (one even had a PhD in psychology, which explains a lot), but it seems pretty deceptive to me. Regardless, we still enjoyed the conference, and were glad to get some time alone together, and give the girls more time to play with their cousins.

We’ll be here in Salt Lake City until the end of the week, and then it’s back to warm Costa Rica!

Share and Enjoy

Share and Enjoy

Still, it’s possible to have fun in the winter, and we have tried to take advantage of the last bit of snow and ice we’ll be seeing for a while. One day, the girls and I built two snowmen in the backyard, and had at least a 30 minute snowball fight. It was great fun. So fun that I was sore the next two days!

Later, we went “ice skating” on the frozen patch of ice in my grandparents’ driveway. The girls loved it, and we’re planning on going to a real ice rink next week. Here are some pictures and videos of our fun. (Note: The snowmen looked better on day 1. I didn’t take the pictures until the next day).

Click the HD and maximize buttons in the corner of the video to see it in full quality.

Camera Downgrade

By the way, we recently downgraded our video camera. We sold our Canon HG10, which took amazing Blue-Ray quality videos (1080p). Awesome camera, and we loved it. However, we have never had a blue-ray capable screen, nor a blue-ray burner, and it takes a lot of space and power to store and process that high quality of video. The camera is also kind of big to carry around, and we thought it might be a theft magnet in Costa Rica. And we don’t really want to look like tourists lugging a camera around our shoulder.

So we sold it and bought a Panasonic Lumix DMC-TS1. It’s a point & shoot camera, but it also takes HD video at 720p with a 5x optical zoom lens. It’s also waterproof, shockproof, and dust proof. And it’s small enough to fit in my pocket! The video and photos in this post were taken with the new camera. The videos definitely aren’t as nice as the HG-10, but good enough. And as we want to travel light, I’ll take the small size over the quality for now.

Share and Enjoy

Share and Enjoy