Entrepreneurs-Journey.com

I just stumbled across a fantastic article by Pamela Slim on her blog, Escape from Cubicle Nation, titled - The sweet spot of your work. She must be loving the attention and the traffic because Guy Kawasaki also sent her some link loving.

The sweet spot as Pamela describes it is:

…the intersection of three interlocking circles: the first is “what people will pay you to do” - marketable skills and abilities that you have developed over your working life. The second is “that which you have great passion for” - areas of interest, hobbies, ideas or causes that make your heart race. And the third, and most elusive, is “that which you are genetically encoded to do” - the things that you were brought on this earth to accomplish that no one else on the planet can do as well as you. Where these circles interlock is your “sweet spot” and place that you should spend your working life if you want to feel alive and full of joy.

That’s it. That is exactly what I am talking about. I’ve not read it put so succinctly with so few words before so it’s definitely worth replication.

We all know what we enjoy doing and strive to fill our lives with as much of it as we can handle. We know we need to earn income to survive in our society and it’s lovely when that aligns nicely with the things we enjoy. The last one is not always talked about as much - your genetic purpose, or as I’d like to simply call it - “your calling”. Your calling is a very spiritual element, if you let it be. Once one find their true calling that also satisfies the money monkey and your own passion monkey then well, you have bliss, or at least a very sweet spot.

As I wrote in a previous article - What Is The 80/20 Rule And Why It Will Change Your Life - finding what you enjoy AND what pays you income is a matter of deciding to seek out the activities that provide the most intrinsic pleasure for you and not letting the pursuit of money only for money’s sake rule.

Pamela has further advice on finding your sweet spot in her article including discussion on who you really are, what people you should seek to surround yourself with (work with), ascertain the exact work you enjoy and taking risks. Go have a read, it’s good stuff.

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I was just alerted to a neat feature from BusinessForSale.com where you can subscribe to an RSS feed of business for sale in your local area or by industry in your country.

If you are considering buying a business take a look at the full selection of RSS feeds available.

The service claims they add over 5,000 new or updated businesses for sale every month, so this is a fantastic way to conduct market research using the power of feeds.

If anyone ends up buying a business through this service I’d love to hear about it!

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If you are into search engine optimization there is a new book called “Google Rank Secrets” with the tagline - How to get listed in Google and Rank in the Top 10 which you may be interested in.

The book claims to help you to - “Rank In The Top 10 Search Results Within 30 Days Or Less!” - which is a pretty bold claim.

I haven’t read my copy yet so I can’t give you a full review so I’ll reserve my judgement, but if search engine optimization and online marketing is your game it’s worth keeping up to date by buying the latest books and info. One or two nuggets of gold can be enough to very quickly recoup the cost of the product.

If you have read this book or heard about it please leave a comment to let us know what you thought.

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Jamsi has an interesting idea (or is this a dream?):

What if you took a holiday for the sheer purpose of creating your ultimate web application, with hope of joining the ranks with successful’s such as digg, myspace and Google. Picture this, caravan within walking distance to the beach, power outlet for your laptop, cupboard full of food and drink and only yourself to talk to. This is the new-age hermit. Simply up and go, leaving everything behind.

Mornings would consist of runs along the beach, swims in the surf and a big hot breakfast to get you started. Days would consist of on and off development, while another project such as getting fit, learning an instrument or building a boat, could remain your other objective. Nights would be left to your desire, and Jack Daniels would always be your friend.

All for 4 weeks. With no distractions. A lot would get done eh?

Source: The ultimate developers holiday

What do you think? Would this be a productive working environment for you?

My current lifestyle is almost like this in the sense that I am living exactly where I want to be and I use my time to work on the projects I want to, plus my cupboards are full of food, I exercise a lot to keep fit and I can do what I want with my nights and, well…it’s pretty darn good! No beach or that wonderful sound of waves crashing to lull you to sleep, but not bad all the same.

What’s your dream working lifestyle?

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I was browsing through my technorati referrers and came across this unique blog - 60 Second Ideas, which listed Entrepreneur’s Journey in their Top 10 Small Business Blogs (Cheers!).

What caught my attention was that the author also produced a video version of the blog entry. The video is a powerpoint-style presentation with a voice over basically reading the blog text. While I’d like to have seen a person in the video so I could identify and meet the author and perhaps gain something beyond what was already presented in the text (if you are going to go to the trouble of making a video why not spice it up a bit with some more commentary or or at least a face?), it certainly was unique and definitely a good way to get some extra attention.

Additional communication channels are definitely an advantage, and that’s one of the main reasons why I podcast. Remember while the majority prefers text you can gain access to new audiences by using audio and video. This goes for more than just blogging and online marketing too - can you think of any ways to use video or audio in your current marketing methods or business?

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