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1. This is a test to see if you are a real person or not. I bought 2 books of yours to try and figure out what to do with my pathetic life and I’m still drawing a blank. Face it I’m a loser and smart people don’t talk to people like me. I’ve got 100 bucks bet I never hear from you.
Pat Cuartero was a Merrill Lynch analyst. But as he says – he discovered a higher purpose – getting more people in New York City to play with yo-yos. He funded his startup with $8,000 on credit cards and netted $32,000 in the first five months. It was enough to persuade him to leave his “real job” and develop his passion for yo-yos.
Instead of just selling yo-yos, Pat developed YoYoNation – a robust community of enthusiasts. There are blogs, forums, contests, and yes, you must register to be part of the community before you can buy a yo-yo.
The current “recession” or economic downturn has prompted many people to enjoy a healthier, greener, ecologically responsible, and simpler lifestyle. So what is the difference between poverty and simplicity?
If I’m angry that I can’t afford a new Ferrari I may feel that I’ve been doomed to poverty. 
However, if I enjoy the classic lines and character of a 20-year old sports car that I can easily afford, then it appears I have chosen simplicity. If I “can’t afford” to eat at Ruth’s Chris I may begrudge the government’s tax and economic policies. If Joanne and I invite some friends over for a potluck dinner where our contribution comes from our neighbor’s left-over cucumbers and tomatoes, our peace of mind may originate from our choice for simplicity.
There are so many new words being birthed by the changing workplace. Words like “googling” as a verb, electronic immigrants, prairie dogging, ohnosecond, blamestorming, seagull manager, chainsaw consultant, flight risk, assmosis, uninstalled, and cube farm.
We all understand the term “telecommuting” – when you have work from the office to complete at home. How about the opposite of that – “reverse telecommuting.” This is the commonplace practice of bringing personal work to the office. It’s no secret a whole lot of time is spent with employees paying personal bills, making personal phone calls, making flight arrangements, medical and social appointments, reading online newspapers, updating FaceBook, and texting family members – all on company time.
I love writing in all its forms: blogs, articles, books, etc. However, the statistics for choosing this as a career are dismal. One in four Americans does not read one book per year. Over 200,000 new books were published last year. Average book sales for a Christian book put out by a major publisher are about 4,000 copies. AuthorSolutions reports that sales of their self-published titles average about 150 copies each. The average sales overall for a book published in America is about 500. Yes, sales of eBooks is growing. But if you think that technology is eliminating “real” books you’ll be interested to know that eBooks comprised about 4% of the overall dollars ($23.9 billion) in book sales in 2009.
