In Your Minimalist Business, High-Impact Income is Everything
This is the first of a three part series on my experience starting a minimalist business. Don’t miss anything! Sign up to receive free updates via RSS or Email.
Written by Everett Bogue | Follow me on Twitter.
The difference between high-impact and low-impact income.
The most common way of working, and the one that most people choose, is low impact. You trade an hour of your time for a little bit of money. After a day, you’re a little older, but you’ve made enough money to pay your electric bill.
These jobs are very common. In most cases the employees are highly replaceable and the pay is just enough to survive.
I’ve worked a few of these jobs, up until August, when I decided to break out of the 9-5 and start exploring new ways to make a living.
So far the decision to do this has been very rewarding.
How I chose to create a high-impact minimalist business.
I decided early on that I wanted to start earning a high-impact living. This is the opposite of the direct trade of time for money. The results are a lot less tangible, but far more rewarding.
This is a minimalist way of working. I spend most of my time doing complex creative tasks. Seth Godin refers to this as emotional labor. I read a lot of books. I research better ways to help my audience. I try out new tools. I make all of the calls on which stories run and which don’t.
To generate high-impact money, you have to create something that is actually valuable. There are no buttons to push. There is no boss to blame the failures on. You are responsible for your own success.
Actions that generate high-impact income may not pay off immediately, the key is that they are scalable in the future. Your 40 hour week today, might bring in $1000 in three months. Your one hour workday might bring in $1000 because of work you did in the past.
I don’t recommend this way of working for everyone. It’s much easier to just sit down and be told what to do. It’s so much harder to trek through the woods, searching for your legacy project.
But, as I said, eventually the rewards are greater.
Here are 8 ways to pursue high impact income.
1, Explore uncharted territory.
High-impact income doesn’t come from well trodden paths. No one can give you the magic combination which will lead you to success. You have to trust your instincts, and most importantly, your heart, and travel to uncharted territory.
2, Follow your passion.
Everyone has there one super power. This is the one thing that they are so much better at than everyone else. You need to put all of your resources into that passion. We are witnessing a point in time when everything is changing. You have the power to build and market the one thing you always wanted to create. Focus on that, nothing else.
3, Ignore everybody.
There’s no payday if you follow everyone else. You can’t ask your mom or your best friend for permission before you start exploring uncharted territory in search of high-impact income. Why? Because no one has done this before. They won’t be able to consult their past experiences to tell you if it will work. If you wait until you get approval from all of society before you take a risk, you’ll be waiting a long time.
4, Focus on your priorities.
When you pursue high-impact income, there will be tasks that yield more than others. Focus on the important moves, and spend less time with unimportant ones. For instance: I know that this blog only works with insanely helpful content. So, I spend 80% of my time developing helpful content. Everything else can wait until I have awesome content for the week.
5, Minimize your expenses.
You cannot start your own high-impact business if you still spend like you’re working a low-impact 9-5. Eventually you will earn a lot more money, but for now you don’t. You need two things: food and shelter. All else can wait until your first payday.
6, Watch your metrics (but not too much.)
At some point you have to check to see if you’re making any progress. Find a way to measure your high-impact income. I do this by tracking your blog visitors and book sales, but this will change depending on what you’re doing. The trick is not to check all day long though. After the first two days of excitedly tracking sales for The Art of Being Minimalist, I finally had to just archive all the emails I was getting. I was spending 80% of my time waiting for new emails, instead of working towards actual goals. Now I check once a day to see how sales are going. Eventually I’ll move that to once a week.
7, Learn when to quit.
If a project isn’t working after a month or two, you need to be able to kill it, or at least approach it from a new angle. Obviously this depends a lot on the business. I stop writing about subjects that don’t resonate with people, and direct my attention towards ones that do. This is about refocusing on what works, and killing what doesn’t. Don’t cling to a topic you love if no one cares about it.
8, Don’t stop doing the work.
No matter how much temporary success you may achieve, or how much failure you are forced to endure, don’t stop working. It’s so easy to just give up, and believe me, many people will tell you that you should. “You’re going to fail, go do something that is normal.” Don’t stop, don’t give up. Do what you have to do until you find success. Eventually you’ll get there, trust me.
How do you pursue high-impact income?
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My new e-book, The Art of Being Minimalist, is on sale now for only $9.95 for the first 1000 people who download it.
More info | Buy now
Become an affiliate, earn $4.97 per sale.
This weekend, take a moment to turn something off.
Written by Everett Bogue | Follow me on Twitter.
In the modern age we think we have to constantly rush from this to that. We think we have to wake up and work every morning. We think we have to constantly respond to e-mails.
I’ve had so many interview requests to respond to about The Art of Being Minimalist, it’s humbling to know that so many people care, but overwhelming. I love doing interviews, and it’s exciting to have so much interest. But I’m tired!
I imagine your work week could have been equally as exciting and busy as mine was this last week.
That’s why I’m going to take some serious disconnect time this weekend. I’m going to pull the plug, so to speak.
I hope that you’ll join me.
Here’s a couple of great ways to disconnect:
1, Take a social network hiatus.
Don’t Tweet, Facebook, or engage with people on any social networking platform that you may use. It’s really fun to Tweet and hear all of the amazing people respond. Do you really want to spend all Sunday morning glued to Tweetdeck though? Cook someone a good breakfast instead!
2, Ignore all calls.
Don’t answer the phone at all this weekend. It doesn’t matter if it’s your mom or your boss calling, just choose not to pick up the telephone. In fact, turn it off. Go to the beach instead, if you live somewhere that’s not as cold as it is here in New York. Otherwise, maybe just grab a coffee and watch people walk by.
3, Don’t check your email.
Just let it sit there, trust me, it will be there come Monday morning. Too often we spend hours of our lives hitting the refresh button on e-mail. Take the exact opposite approach and don’t check it at all.
4, Spend a day in silence.
Just go about your day without speaking to anyone. Observe your thoughts. Read a book. Be sure to let anyone who might be offended know what you’re doing, so they don’t get mad.
5, Refuse to buy anything.
Take a break from consumerism and don’t go shopping or eat out for one day. Make sure you have enough food to prepare before you start this. Leave your credit cards and cash at home if you go out.
6, Don’t use any electricity.
Unplug all of the appliances and lights in your house (don’t do this to the fridge, your food will spoil.) Pretend you’re no-impact man for a day, and see how it is. You’ll notice that you won’t have any light after a certain hour, so either light a candle or sit in silence until it’s time for bed.
7, Don’t use transportation.
Don’t take the subway, don’t drive your car, don’t even bike. Just walk if you need to go anywhere. I love walking into Manhattan on weekends to take Yoga. It makes me appreciate my surroundings so much more. A two hour walk somewere can be very meditative.
How do you disconnect?
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My new e-book, The Art of Being Minimalist, is on sale now for only $9.95 for the first 1000 people who download it.
More info | Buy now
Become an affiliate, earn 50% commission.
Why your futuresense is handicapping your success.
Written by Everett Bogue | Follow me on Twitter.
Around two million years ago, we humans evolved the absolutely stunning ability to see things that were going to happen in our heads.
Two million years might seem like a long time, but as far as evolution goes we’ve just developed this miraculous ability. We’re still trying to grasp how to use our pre-frontal cortex properly.
This ability to project experiences upon ourselves can be quite useful. It allows me to try out blog post topics in my head before I write them. If they bomb in my head, there is a good chance you won’t want to read them either. This saves me the trouble of writing (too many) bad blog posts.
I like to call this our futuresense.
No other animal has this ability to anticipate the future quite like humans do. It’s hard to compare it with any other ability. I trust you can do this, and you know what I’m talking about.
This ability to futuresense is cool, but the problem is that it doesn’t always work right. In fact, a good deal of the time our futuresense is completely off.
We don’t know what will make us happy.
I gaurantee at some point in your life you’ve sat awake at night and anticipated a date that was going to change your life — and then it was a boring date. Or you couldn’t wait to get your hands on a new gizmo-gadget, but this didn’t end up solving all of your problems.
If fact, imagine you have this choice: Tomorrow you’re either going to win the lottery, or you’ll be hit by a bus and be paralyzed for the rest of your life.
Which one will make you happier? Easy choice, I know. You want to win the lottery.
Well, you guessed wrong.
Studies have been done on the happiness of these two outcomes. Statistically people who experience these two outcomes end up with the same level of happiness, whether or not they were hit by a bus or won the lottery. Shocking!
What this tells me is that we’re all too focused on a future happiness, and ignoring the fact that we’re going to be the same amount of happy in the future as we are now.
Why don’t we appreciate what we have now? Stop futuresensing, start enjoying this moment.
We can’t futuresense most outcomes.
Then there is the fact that of all the possible outcomes that you’ve been futuresensing, the chances of anything close to what you futuresense coming true are slim.
Many of us sit for endless hours pondering outcomes. ‘Well if I do this, x will happen and it’ll be a disaster.’
How many times has your futuresense told you that everything was going to be a big mess, and it wasn’t? Probably most of the time. The world isn’t really that scary a place, but your futuresense still thinks there are sabertooth tigers.
You can’t anticipate the future.
So we spend hours upon hours ‘making plans’ before we do anything. If what I’m telling you about the inaccuracies of our futuresense is true, then making plans is about the most absurd thing you can do.
By making a plan, you’re just sitting around contemplating a future that isn’t going to happen. Your end product is zero. This doesn’t mean you can’t have objectives, priorities, goals.
I’m just saying that playing out the final act in your head before you start working is a waste of time, and yet we spend so much time doing it.
Nothing actually happens until you take an action and do something.
You can’t futuresense outcomes at all, you can only waste your time. It’s the least minimalist emotion.
You have the power to decide to opt out of using your pre-frontal cortex before you do every little thing. This is not easy, but it helps once you recognize what you’re doing. You’re working yourself up into a big old panic attack over 75 futures that won’t happen.
Turn it off, start living your life.
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My new e-book, The Art of Being Minimalist, is on sale now for only $9.95 for the first 1000 people who download it.
More info | Buy now
Become an affiliate, earn 50% commission.
Download your free copy today for 24 hours.
Written by Everett Bogue | Follow me on Twitter.
[Update February 2: Thank you so much everyone. The free link is now closed.
The last 24 hours has been a quite a day! I've received so many emails and tweets thanking me for the book. I'm continually amazed at how many people downloaded and enjoyed reading The Art of Being Minimalist.
You can purchase The Art of Being Minimalist here.]
I’m excited to announce that I’ve finished my first ever e-book, The Art of Being Minimalist.
And I’m releasing today, for free. But only for 24 hours.
About The Art of Being Minimalist
I’ve been working on this The Art of Being Minimalist since the start of this blog in October of 2009. It’s a real privilege to release it to you now.
Long-time readers will notice that I’ve incorporated some of the best material from Far Beyond The Stars in the e-book along with brand new material about living a simple minimalist life.
The Art of Being Minimalist tells the story of how I was able to leave my job successfully during a recession and set out on my own. It explores how living a minimalist life can help you achieve your own ideas of success. It explains how being minimalist can help you live a life that revolves around activities that you enjoy.
Here’s how you can help spread the word:
I hope that you will take 10 seconds or more of your time, in exchange for receiving this copy free, to help me out today.
- Retweet this on Twitter, so the amazing people who follow you can have a free copy.
- Share this on Facebook, so your friends can have a free copy too.
- Write a review of my e-book on your blog.
- Become an affiliate seller and put the link on your blog (earn 50% commission on every e-book sale.)
- Write a review of my e-book on your blog and sign up for the affiliate program with a link to the book.
- Interview me about the book on your blog or media outlet.
- Invite me to do a guest post on your blog about The Art of Being Minimalist.
(Please don’t do anything sketchy or spam people with links please.)
I’m an independent writer, and this blog is my primary source of income. Your help is the only way that readers find my blog, as always your help spreading the word is greatly appreciated.
If this e-book helps you, considering giving a small donation to support my writing.
Thank you.
Download The Art of Being Minimalist for free. [Update: the giveaway is now over. You can purchase The Art of Being Minimalist here.]
This link will be up for 24 hours starting February 1st 2010 at 6:00am EST.
You can visit The Art of Being Minimalist website here.
[UPDATE: There were a few broken hyperlinks in the initial free version. Please re-download if you're having any trouble clicking.
You can find Leo Babauta's A Simple Guide to a Minimalist Life here.]
11 ways to use minimalist ideas to launch your e-book.
Written by Everett Bogue | Follow me on Twitter.
As many of you know, I’m putting the final touches on my e-book The Art of Being Minimalist.
The Art of Being Minimalist is essentially the culmination of the ideas I’ve put out on this blog, along with my experiences traveling around the country over the last four months.
I’ve integrated some of the best articles from the blog (so you’ll recognize or have read some of the content before) with a lot of all new content that expands on my ideas.
How I went from zero to done in two weeks.
Some people have asked me how I went from having no plans for an e-book to selling in e-book in two weeks.
The truth is that I’ve always planned on having an e-book available through Far Beyond The Stars. This is why I’ve worked so hard on the content here, because I’ve wanted to put all of the ideas that I’ve developed here into an e-book.
The final product came together over the last two weeks. I felt like I had completed enough of the e-book to make it worth reading. So, I finished it.
I’ll be releasing The Art of Being Minimalist on Monday, February 1st at 6am.
I’ll be giving away the e-book for free for 24 hours, with the request that you spread to as many people as possible during that time. I’d rather this e-book be read by 10,000 people, than forcing 1000 people to buy it. All of you reading this now deserve to read it for free, because you’ve been so supportive over the last few months.
You’ve helped me write every word of this e-book, thank you.
I’m going to be offering the opportunity to earn 50% commission selling the ebook to everyone. There are many great minimalist blogs out there, I hope this e-book can help support your writing as well as my own.
Here’s what I’ve learned about launching an e-book. I hope this can help you with yours.
12 things I’ve learned about launching a minimalist e-book.
1, Make the end the priority.
My aim for this blog has always been to launch e-books, much like Chris Guillebeau does at The Art of Nonconformity. Every day I sat down at the computer, and when I wrote I was focusing on the end product. This created a consistency to my blog that wouldn’t have been there otherwise. From day 1 to day 124 this has been about The Art of Being Minimalist, and nothing else.
2, Write content that helps people.
Your blog and your e-book has to have the goal of helping people. Self-referential blogs are a dime a dozen out there on the net, and there is a reason why everyone’s eyes gloss over when they come across a diary blog. This blog and this e-book has always been about helping you, the audience. I want you to join me in living this life of minimalist freedom. I hope this e-book can help you achieve your goals.
3, Give yourself no other options.
I quit my job to become a minimalist and move to Portland. I’ve passed up other opportunities in order to focus on writing this e-book, because I knew I had to create something of value for the community. I also knew that I wouldn’t be happy if I wasn’t creating something that was going to build my legacy project. I was tired of my work going to benefit large corporations, so my focus has been on creating useful information for people. I hope this writing can help you. I also hope that enough people will buy it that I can support myself until I write the next ebook.
4, Write what you know.
This blog and the e-book are about the life that I live. I couldn’t have written this sitting at a desk in an office, because I wouldn’t have experienced the depth of being minimalist that occurs when you get on a plane with all of your stuff on your back. There is simply no way to have that experience while being safe at the same time. This writing wouldn’t have happened without making the leap to see if the life I dreamed about was possible. It is possible, I’ve been there.
5, Don’t stop doing the work.
This is probably the most important. Don’t stop working. I’ve never missed a scheduled post in the last 4 months. Once I settled on a publishing schedule of three articles a week, I didn’t take a break. I did the work every day towards this goal. If I knew I was going to have other commitments, or I’d be out of contact, I scheduled posts ahead of time. It’s a really bad idea to drop off the planet while trying to run a successful blog, if you do that the momentum is gone and you don’t have an e-book after 124 days.
6, Participate in the community.
I wouldn’t be here without the minimalist community. I’ve met some amazing people, and they’ve helped me more than they’ll ever know. See the blogroll on the side to meet some of these awesome individuals. I’ve received emails asking for help that made me think about how to help people better. I’ve received some emails challenging my positions, which made me think more about whether they were valid. I changed things if they were crazy. I stood fast if I found I could defend them. All because of the amazing people who read this blog. Thank you everyone.
7, Choose a mentor.
I also wouldn’t be here without the help of Leo Babauta, the author of The Simple Guide to a Minimalist Life. 1, Because the sales of his e-book helped support me while I worked on my own e-book. 2, Because many of you probably found my blog through him. When I say mentor, I don’t mean that I bothered Leo all of the time for help. We’ve probably spent three minutes interacting over the last four months, mostly on Twitter. I wouldn’t dream of taking up any more of his time. He’s made the decision to link to my blog a few times over the last few months, and that has made a huge difference in how much traffic I’ve received. Thank you Leo.
8, Study the best.
I spent the last year studying e-book launches. I did this by watching some of the best. Darren Rowse of Problogger, Chris Guillebeau of The Art of Nonconformity, Jonathan Fields of Awake at the Wheel, and many more. These people are the masters of creating e-books that help people. I spent endless hours reading their material and learning how they do what they do.
9, Spend less time with hype.
I’ve noticed that many bloggers announce the e-books they’re working on around a year in advance, and then every couple of weeks they write a post about how hard it is to write an e-book. That’s cool, but it’s not helping anyone until you’ve finished it. I also have artist friends that spend years talking about “amazing projects that will rock the world” that they never finish. I figured the minimalist approach to launching a blog e-book would be to not speak of it at all until it was ready to go. Then launch quickly, decisively, and actually launch (most people don’t get to the launch point.)
10, Let people help you.
I’m so thankful that I’m not doing this alone. Chris O’Byrne was thoughtful enough to email me a few days ago offering to copy edit my e-book, he did a great job. As you all know, clean copy is definitely not my strong point. I’m so thankful for his help. I’m also thankful to all of the people who have offered to help market the book on their own blogs, such as Tammy Strobel, Jules of Stone Soup, and Chris Baskind of the upcoming blog The Minimalist Century. I’ll be releasing more details on how you can earn 50% commission selling my e-book on Monday. If you want to get on board earlier than that, drop me an email and I’ll get you what you need to make sales and get commission.
11, Ship the e-book.
As Seth Godin writes in his new book Linchpin: the enemy of shipping is the resistance. Making the decision to overcome all of the fears that are associated with publishing a work is hard. I’m sure there will be people who read this book and decide to criticize me for living the way that I do. I’m okay with that. I could have let fear overcome the decision to publish this, but I didn’t. I fought it, I wrote for hundreds of hours. I did all of the design and photography on this e-book. I set a date and I shipped.
On Monday it will be available for the world.
I believe this e-book will help a lot of people begin living a simple and more minimalist life. I hope that you will enjoy it.
Thank you for making this possible.
-Everett Bogue
