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Meet Quentin and Eissa from DimWorld

Meet Quentin and Eissa from DimWorld

by | Aug 18, 2018 | DimWorld, Self-Awareness

If you’ve read any of my other blogs, then you probably know that I am a big fan of understanding how my brain works. As a fiction writer, this is a really big deal. The better I understand how people think, the better my characters will be. I think this is what makes Stephen King so engaging. He understands people exceptionally well, and he’s good at getting that down on paper.

I’ve just completed the second major revision of Genesis Dimension, which is the first book in my sci-fi series, DimWorld. I had to put a new beginning on the story, but I also spent a lot of time trying to make Quentin and Eissa more complete and dynamic people.

Quentin is a lot like me, in many ways. He’s the main character in the series. While he’s a smart, capable guy, and he’s really good at what he does (IT Tech at a big energy company), he has a serious lack of self-confidence. And what do smart, insecure people do? They seek validation from people whom they deem worthy of recognizing their competence, such as their supervisor. When they don’t get it, at least in the form they are expecting, they take it as a personal attack, and the war is on.

While Quentin manages to develop confidence in himself over the course of the story, and therefore reduces his need for validation from outside sources, we realize that if the big disaster hadn’t backed him into a corner and forced him to grow, he probably would have spent his life trapped in that loop. This is fairly representative of my life. I spent years trying to get validation from other people. It started as a kid, trying to win my dad’s approval, and continued into my adult life. Every boss I ever had ended up as a victim of my scorn, because they didn’t spend enough time telling me that I was doing a great job. Even though I was doing a great job, I was a terrible employee because of my insecurities.

Eissa has her own set of problems. As a combat veteran, she struggles with PTSD. This usually manifests itself as anxiety attacks, but it also undermines her confidence because she never knows when something is going to trigger an episode, and that makes her reluctant to participate in the world. She’s also a lesbian and a Native American, and she has a very different understanding of the world than Quentin does. While they’ve been lifelong best friends, she still has to point out to him occasions of privilege and oppression. While he’s on her side and supports her in every way, he still doesn’t always understand the difference between his experience and her experience. Again, Quentin and I are a lot alike, and have had to learn similar hard lessons.

One of the wonderful things about living in the information age is the accessibility of resources and tools. I listen to a lot of podcasts, and I have learned so much from them that it’s hard for me to believe that I made it so far in life not knowing all this stuff. Podcasts like Finding Mastery, StoryBrand, and The Liberator have taught me about being a better team member, a better leader, a better friend, and how to understand myself and others. I’ve used this knowledge to make the veterinary clinic that my wife and I own the best place in the world to work (and to get equine medical care), but I’ve also tried to apply it to the characters in my books.

All books have a message or two they are trying to deliver to the world, and mine are no different in that respect. The personal growth aspect isn’t the main point of the story, but I do hope that people will be able to connect with Quentin and Eissa and learn a few useful things from their journey. I know I’ve learned a lot!

Genesis Dimension

J. Boyd Long is an author, blogger, website developer, and the CFO of Springhill Equine Veterinary Clinic. In his spare time (ha!) he likes to paint, read, canoe, and hike in the wilderness. You can subscribe to this blog in the blue block, and future blogs will be delivered to your email. Warning: Subscribing may increase your awesomeness quotient. Please feel free to comment, and share this blog on your favorite social media page! To learn more, please visit JBoydLong.com.

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Emotional Stability – The Quest For Balance

Emotional Stability – The Quest For Balance

by | Apr 1, 2018 | Happiness, Self-Awareness

Emotional Stability – The Quest for Balance

The older I get, the more important emotional stability becomes to me. I’m not interested in having drama in my life, and I’m certainly not interested in other people’s drama. I like my ocean to be as flat as possible, with waves and troughs being gentle. No more raging storms for me, please!

I’ve spent a lot of time studying myself in an effort to change the way I feel about myself and the world around me. I got tired of being on the emotional roller coaster, and not having any control over my mood. Trying to manage my emotions with alcohol worked to some degree for a while, but it wasn’t a practical solution. I needed more.

emotional stability J. Boyd Long

What Contributes to my Emotional Stability?

It took me a long time to figure all this out, and the simplicity of it made me feel silly for suffering so long out of ignorance. I’m an INFJ (or an INTJ, it depends on the day) personality type, so I’m wired to be very emotional. While I can’t change that, I can affect a lot of factors which directly impact my emotional stability.

Not all of these things will apply to everyone, and there are probably things that apply to some of you that aren’t on this list. This is just intended to be a framework which you can customize to suit your life.

Exercise

One of the biggest factors that impact my general mood on a daily basis is exercise. I exercised daily back when I was in the Army, but I stopped the day I got out. I didn’t start exercising on a daily basis again for almost 15 years. When I started swimming laps every morning, I found that I felt better, and I was less susceptible to negative stimuli at work. When I would find myself in a funk that I couldn’t shake, one of the glaring changes in my routine would be that I hadn’t worked out in a few days. As soon as I started working out again, my funk went away. I’ve tested this repeatedly, and I always get the same result. Endorphins are my friend!

Rest

I am blessed to be a morning person. My eyes pop open somewhere between 4 am and 5 am every day, 7 days a week. As a result of this, I can’t stay awake past 9 pm. Therefore, I always get plenty of sleep, and I don’t have to wake up to an alarm clock, which is awesome.

The exception to this comes by way of night-time horse emergencies. My wife is an equine veterinarian, and sometimes we have to go see a sick or injured horse at night. Just to be clear, this is a very exciting lifestyle for me, and I love it! The impact of this, however, is that when I only get 4 or 5 hours of sleep, my demeanor suffers the next day.

Most of you are not morning people. That means you have to make a concerted effort to get enough sleep, because you aren’t ready to go to bed until midnight. Being aware of this and creating routines to help you do what’s best for you will be helpful. You can program your television to turn off at a certain time (or get rid of the TV altogether, you’d be way better off!). You can also set an alarm on your phone to remind you to turn off the light and call it a day, you just have to muster up the self-discipline to do it.

Food

The body needs fuel to do its thing. Not everyone has the same requirements, and I’m not a nutritionist, so I’m not going to give you advice on what to eat. I’m just going to explain what I know about me.

I learned in my 30’s that when I eat every 2-3 hours (snacks, not a full meal) that I operate a lot better than simply eating 3 meals a day. That means that for me to take care of my nutritional needs, I need to take a few protein bars or something with me to get me from one meal to the next. When I get too hungry, my emotional stability goes out the window and I turn into a diva.

Routine

I am a creature of habit. I like to get in the same bed at the same time every night and get up at the same time every morning. I like to drink a cup of coffee at the same time every day, out of the same cup. There is a wide variety of tasks that I do for my day job, but they fall within known parameters, and I know what to expect most of the time. At night, I like to play Words with Friends with my wife right before I fall asleep. You know, routine stuff.

When I am outside of my routine, I’ve learned that I’m a little bit edgier. When my wife and I go out of town for a horse show or a convention, my routine goes out the window. My schedule is different, the bed is different, the coffee is WAY different, and so on. I know this, so I can brace myself and remind myself that I need to be calm, that I’m okay, and I shouldn’t be irritable. I know what the problem is, and I can adjust to it.

Coffee

I’m going to give a special section just to coffee, because it was a major problem for me for a long time, and I didn’t know what was wrong.

Like most people, I’ve been drinking coffee at the same time every morning for my entire adult life. What I didn’t know was that at some point I developed a wicked caffeine addiction. In my 20’s and early 30’s I would occasionally sleep in on Saturday. I would still be up by 7, but it was 2 or 3 hours past my normal time. Invariably, I would end up with a headache, sometimes a whopper of a headache that would screw me up for most of the day. Sometimes I would end up puking, it was so bad. Miserable.

I didn’t know it then, but I know it now: if I am late with the coffee, my body will freak out and go into caffeine withdrawals. The solution? Either get up at the same time every day, or wean myself off caffeine. I chose to cut back to 1 cup a day, and I don’t sleep in. Ever. When I travel, I make sure I have caffeine pills with me in case the hotel doesn’t have coffee. It’s a simple fix, and I don’t lose entire days over it anymore. I wish I had known this when I was 20!

The Framework for Emotional Stability

If you are looking to achieve some emotional stability in your life, then you need to identify the factors that impact you. Figure out what the common denominators are when you feel great, and when you feel terrible. Don’t be afraid to experiment. Once you know what your preferred settings are in life, it’s fairly simple to build and maintain a structure that keeps you on an even keel.

The other side of this is diagnosing a funk. If you know what your factors are, and you realize that you are irritable/depressed/hostile, you can run a quick self-check and see what’s off. Then you can fix it, or at least maintain self-awareness and hold yourself in check until you can address the deficiency.

This is all about setting yourself up for success and a happy life. Don’t be a passenger in life, be the driver!

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J. Boyd Long is an author, blogger, website developer, and the CFO of Springhill Equine Veterinary Clinic. In his spare time (ha!) he likes to paint, read, canoe, and hike in the wilderness. You can subscribe to this blog in the blue block, and future blogs will be delivered to your email. Warning: Subscribing may increase your awesomeness quotient. Please feel free to comment, and share this blog on your favorite social media page! To learn more, please visit JBoydLong.com.

Understanding Self: The Foundation of Success

Understanding Self: The Foundation of Success

by | Mar 11, 2018 | Self Improvement, Self-Awareness, Success

Understanding Self: The Foundation of Success

If you understand others you are smart.
If you understand yourself you are illuminated.
If you overcome others you are powerful.
If you overcome yourself you have strength.
If you know how to be satisfied you are rich.
If you can act with vigor, you have a will.
If you don’t lose your objectives you can be long-lasting.
If you die without loss, you are eternal.

  • Lao Tzu

One of the keys to being successful in any aspect of life is understanding other people. How do we do that? We have to start by understanding ourselves. The better you understand yourself, the better you will be at everything you do, whether it’s working, being in a relationship, being a friend, being creative, running a business, making decisions, and the list goes on. Sound important? It should. Understanding self is critical to everything else! So, let’s get started. Open up a blank document, or grab a pen and paper, and let’s build a reflection of you.

Personality Traits

One of the best tools in our time is the Myers-Briggs personality assessment. If you haven’t already done it, go to 16personalities.com and take the free assessment. Do yourself a favor and take it honestly. Don’t answer the questions the way you want other people to think you are, answer them truthfully. This isn’t a judgement of character, it’s a self-assessment tool.

When you know these things about yourself based on your personality, you can then determine if your job is right for you. You can assess opportunities and determine if they are a good fit for you. You can pinpoint the sources of stress in your life and understand why things are affecting you the way they are, and make changes accordingly. Finally, you can better understand your relationships with other people by understanding the differences in your personality traits. This will make you a better communicator, a better spouse, a better friend.

Exercise: Write out your personality type based on the assessment. What sticks out to you? What surprised you? What did you already know that got confirmed?

Peaks and Troughs

I went over this at length in my recent blog on Effective Time Management. You’ll want to read that too, if you haven’t already, but here’s the crux of it:

Everyone has highs and lows throughout the day. Some of us are morning people. My eyes pop open sometime between 4 am and 5 am every day. After a cup of coffee, I am at my best mental condition, primed up and ready to tackle the heavy thinking. This will wear off by lunch time, and I will only be operating and 40% – 60% capacity at best for the rest of the day. I have a crash around noon, then I get a second wind in the mid-afternoon, with another crash around 4 pm.

This is important for me to know, because it allows me to schedule my activities accordingly. If I’m going to write a blog, I want to be at 100%, so I know not to try to do that in the afternoon or evening. If I have errands to run, I don’t waste my prime brain time by doing them in the morning. Instead, I save them for the afternoon so I can make the best use of my time.

If you are the opposite of me, you’ll find my schedule to be ridiculous. After all, I’m ready to go to bed at 8 pm, and you might just be getting into your prime time. I might not do my best thinking at 10 pm, but it’s important for me to understand that others can be wired different than I am, and I shouldn’t base my expectations of them on the way I do things. Understanding this relieves me of the stress of unrealistic expectations of others.

Exercise: Under your personality type, write out the 24 hours of the day (1 pm, 2 pm, 3 pm, etc). If you’re on your computer, color code the hours based on your operating capacity at that time. Black is for sleeping. Green is for Best, Blue is for Second Wind, Red is for Crash times. If you’re doing this in paper, draw lines to block the day into sections, and label each one accordingly.

Know Your Triggers

There is an acronym in the recovery community called HALT. That stands for Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired. The idea is that if you realize that you are irritable or stressed, you do a quick HALT inventory. The source of the problem is often one of these 4 things.

Hungry: Being hungry is a huge thing for me. You know those Snickers commercials with guys turning into divas when they get hungry? That’s totally me. I didn’t know that for a long time, so I just ran around all morning in a bad mood, jonesing for lunchtime. Now I know that I should eat a protein bar at 10 am, and another one at 3 pm. If I don’t I’ll get hangry (hungry/angry). I have explained this to those around me, and they know to ask me if I need to eat if I’m being grumpy. Guess what? My life is way better.

Angry: Being angry about something can easily spiral into a nose dive for some people. If the source of your stress is being angry, identify what exactly you are angry about. If you can isolate it, then it’s easier to solve it, or at least keep it from spilling over to the rest of your day and those around you.

Lonely: For extroverts, too much isolation is a bad thing. If you are an extrovert, and you get your energy from being around people, then having a job where you are by yourself all the time can be stressful. On the opposite side of that, if you are an introvert, then being around people too much can be stressful. Whichever side you’re on, you can quickly recognize if you need to either get a few minutes of alone time, or go find someone else for a quick people break.

Tired: Being tired is a very common source of irritability. If you determine that this is the problem, take a nap. If a nap isn’t an option, then often a 5 minute brisk walk around can help. If you have the opportunity to just close your eyes for ten minutes (set an alarm!), it can help you out tremendously.

Exercise: What are your triggers? What can you do to solve them as quickly as possible? What do you need to have with you to manage your triggers? Do you have a trigger that’s not on this list? How can you manage it?

Putting The Big Picture Together

Knowing your personality type will help you understand your tendencies, and the way you are wired. This is useful beyond measure. Add in your daily peaks and troughs, your triggers, and your solutions, and you have a blueprint for making great decisions and being prepared to handle life. Once you have been doing this for a while, and read up on other personality traits, you will start to understand the people around you better, and that will lead to a better relationship with them.

Here’s an example of some of the things I learned about myself from this process:

I am an INFJ-T.

I am an introvert. I can function around other people, but I need alone time to recharge, and this is very important. I do best when I am alone more than I am around groups of people. (I know it sounds crazy, but I didn’t know this most of my life. I just knew that I was way more comfortable in social situations if I was drinking.)

I am very idealistic, I emotionally invest in everything I do, I’m sensitive to stress and criticism, I’m organized and decisive, and I have very high standards and expectations of myself and others. (I knew most of this, but seeing it in writing has really made me realize that my job needs to matter. If what I’m doing all day is meaningless, then I’m never going to be happy doing it for long, no matter how well it pays. I also need the people I work with to have a high investment in what they are doing. If I’m the only one putting in 100% effort, I’ll go crazy.)

I don’t respond well to Authoritarian or Command-and-Control leaders. (This is a huge big deal for me to know about myself. I spent 10 years of my life working either in the Army or for the Army as a civilian, and both were 100% C-a-C environments, and I was miserable. Knowing this will help me make better decisions about where I work.

Weaknesses that I need to be aware of and work on:

Very sensitive, get my feelings hurt easily, take everything personally

Prone to burn-out: need to pace myself

I tend to be dismissive of other people’s ideas. – work on listening, and realize that just because someone has a better idea than me doesn’t mean that I failed.

Peaks and Troughs

I have my Time Optimizer Template below, which tells me what time I should do each task. Green is my best time, blue is okay time, red is my worst time.

5 am          1 pm

6 am          2 pm

7 am          3 pm

8 am          4 pm

9 am          5 pm

10 am         6 pm

11 am         7 pm

12 pm         8 pm

9 pm – 4 am – sleeping

HALT Inventory

I need to always have protein bars or crackers with me, everywhere I go. I also need a quiet, isolated spot to get away from people when I need a break (5 minutes alone can do a lot for me). I should set an alarm and take a ten-minute power nap after lunch. If I don’t set the alarm, I’ll sleep for 2 hours, and I’ll be a wreck the rest of the day.

Conclusion

Hopefully your sheet looks something like this, although a bit longer (mine’s short since it’s just an example). The more extensive it is, the better. Refer back to it a lot until you know it by heart. It’s a living document, and it should change as you change, so refine it and update it when necessary.

Use these insights in every aspect of your life. You will find that the better you understand yourself, the more you will be able to build a lifestyle that brings you satisfaction and joy. Your relationship with yourself will improve, and your relationships with everyone else in your life will improve as a result of that. Self-discovery is at the center of everything.

Foundation of success

 

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J. Boyd Long is an author, blogger, website developer, and the CFO of Springhill Equine Veterinary Clinic. In his spare time (ha!) he likes to paint, read, canoe, and hike in the wilderness. You can subscribe to this blog in the blue block, and future blogs will be delivered to your email. Warning: Subscribing may increase your awesomeness quotient. Please feel free to comment, and share this blog on your favorite social media page! To learn more, please visit JBoydLong.com.

Effective Time Management

Effective Time Management

by | Mar 4, 2018 | Goals

Effective Time Management: How To Make The Best Use Of Your Time

For people who are trying to accomplish things, there are never enough hours in the day. Time. We just need more time! If I didn’t have to sleep, I’d get so much more accomplished, right? If you can’t make the day longer, then the only other way to do more is to figure out how to make the best use of your time.

What Are You Trying To Accomplish?

First things first. Before you can make a time management plan, you need to have clear objectives. If you don’t have your goals worked out, then go do that first. Once you know what it is that you’re trying to accomplish, then you can use your time management processes to make sure you’re doing all the right things to achieve your goals.

I recently wrote a blog about goals, and if you haven’t read that one, you can find it here. Essentially, you should have 1-2 goals for the year. Your daily, weekly, and monthly goals should be the incremental steps you need to complete to reach your annual goal.

Effective time management is when you organize your activities each day such that all of your effort is directed towards achieving your goals. There are plenty of daily activities that don’t directly contribute to meeting our goals, but still must be attended to. In The Four Disciplines of Execution, author Sean Covey calls these things “The Whirlwind.” It’s easy to get caught up in the whirlwind of daily activities and never actually accomplish anything.

Delegation

One of the most important time management tools you have is delegation. This is simply the art and science of doing what you need to do, and putting people in place around you to do all the other things that take away from your ability to accomplish your goals each day. Oh, and most importantly, actually letting them do those things.

Many of us are control freaks. We don’t trust anyone to do things for us, because they won’t do the task to our specification, or they don’t know as much as we do, or they will take too long, or any number of reasons. It’s important to overcome this hurdle and empower others to do things to free up our time.

Delegation might sound like one of those time management techniques that only apply to someone in a management-level position in a big company. In reality, everyone has the power (and the responsibility) to delegate all kinds of tasks to others. For example: The grass needs to be mowed at our veterinary clinic once a week most of the year. I’m quite capable of mowing it, but that is not productive use of my time. It’s much more sensible for me to pay someone else to do that, so that I can focus that 4 hours a week on things that contribute directly to my goal.

For the man who mows the grass, it’s a different situation, but the same principles apply. His daily goal is to mow X number of lawns to meet his financial goal for the year. Therefore, his time is best spent mowing and gaining new clients, and he should delegate tasks that take away from his time to do that.

We often use the excuse that we can’t afford to pay others to do things. While this might be true, it’s a temporary condition that can be overcome with diligence. If you can save enough money to start paying someone to do something for you, then you have the opportunity to be more productive with that block of time that you’ve freed up. By being more productive and efficient with that block of time, your revenue should increase more than the cost of delegating whirlwind tasks. If you do it right, it’s ultimately cheaper to pay others than it is to do it all yourself.

Know Thyself, and to Thine Own Self Be True

Once you have delegated everything you can delegate, then it’s time to work on Effective Time Management. This requires you to know yourself, and how your body and brain tend to function on a daily basis.

I’m a morning person. I do my very best thinking, both creatively and analytically, between 5 am and 11 am. I have a semi-crash period around lunch, a second wind, and then a hard crash around 4 pm. I get a third wind around 7 pm, but it doesn’t last more than an hour.

So, because I know this about myself, I can make a list of things I need to work on each day, and schedule them according to when I will be most effective. The best way for me to do this is to write my To-Do List, and then rate each item by how much brain power I need to do my best at that task.

Here’s an example, and the rating scale is 1 – 10, with 1 being “I can do that in my sleep” and 10 being “Maximum Focus.”

To Do List, and Focus Rating

Write 3 emails to new clients – 9

Write 2 emails to vendors – 5

Phone Call with client to discuss project – 10

Enter last week’s credit card charges into Quickbooks – 8

Finish website job for M. Jones – 8

Create invoice for M. Jones – 4

Make bank deposit – 2

Run website updates on Client List C – 2

 

I have my Time Optimizer Template below, which tells me what time I should do each task. Green is my best time, blue is okay time, red is my worst time.

5 am     1 pm

6 am      2 pm

7 am     3 pm

8 am     4 pm

9 am     5 pm

10 am     6 pm

11 am     7 pm

12 pm     8 pm

 

 So, effective time management for my day would be to schedule the things that require the most focus in the morning when I am at my best. I can write my client emails early in the morning, finish building the website, and still be fresh for the client phone call during morning business hours. I know not to schedule that call during any of the red times on the schedule, because it’s really important that I am at my best for that conversation. I can do the vendor emails, invoicing, updates, and run to the bank in the afternoon when I’m not on my A game.

Not everything has to happen between 8 am and 5 pm. Of course, the details depend on your job, and if you work for yourself vs someone else, and so on. However, if you work for yourself, or you have a side hustle that you are trying to grow, then you can use all the hours of the day to their best potential and get a lot more accomplished than you can by doing the hardest tasks at bad times.

I know that data entry into QuickBooks takes me twice as long in the afternoon as it does in the morning, so I always try to do that in the mornings. It’s the most effective time management for me. The same goes for writing. If I’m working on writing a book, I schedule my writing time in the mornings.

Set Yourself Up For Success

Create your own Time Optimizer Template based on your peak and trough times and develop a routine where you schedule your activities using the template every day. After a while, this will become second nature to you.

The more you understand what you are trying to do, what you need to do to make that happen, and how to practice effective time management, you will be amazed at what you can accomplish. You will surprise yourself at what you are capable of, and your goals will get bigger as you start achieving new levels of success. You are your own biggest inhibitor, and once you learn how to manage yourself, then there are no limits to what you can do. What are you waiting for? Go do something great!

J. Boyd Long is an author, blogger, website developer, and the CFO of Springhill Equine Veterinary Clinic. In his spare time (ha!) he likes to paint, read, canoe, and hike in the wilderness. You can subscribe to this blog in the blue block, and future blogs will be delivered to your email. Warning: Subscribing may increase your awesomeness quotient. Please feel free to comment, and share this blog on your favorite social media page! To learn more, please visit JBoydLong.com.

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3 Ways to Live a Happier Life

3 Ways to Live a Happier Life

by | Jan 28, 2018 | Happiness, Self Improvement

3 Ways to Live a Happier Life

Are you living the happiest life that you can live? For most of us, the answer is probably no. There are a lot of surface things you can do to live a happier life. Then there are the basic principles that are at the core of your lifestyle. We’re going to look at a few of those today.

Why doesn’t everyone do these things? Because it’s hard. It’s painful in the beginning, and most people can’t see past that to the freedom that lies beyond. Oh, and it involves change, and most people refuse to change. However, if you are sick and tired of being sick and tired, here are some things you can do.

Get Rid of the Television

I can hear the screams of protest, but hear me out. The average American watches 5 hours of TV a day, and the older you are, the more TV you watch. That means your brain is on autopilot, absorbing advertising and mindless entertainment. You aren’t getting as much sleep as you should, or as much exercise. Over time, your ability to think critically is impaired because you don’t do it outside of work (and maybe not at work, either).

How many of you sleep with the TV on? 2/3 of Americans. How many of you eat dinner with the TV on? 2/3 of Americans. How many of you listen to your kids talk about school with the TV on, or your spouse talk about their day? If you’re doing these things, then you aren’t fully engaging with other people. You also aren’t thinking as much as you should, or letting your brain rest at night (it can hear the TV when you’re asleep, you know). This means you’re likely stressed out easily, and you can’t focus or make good decisions.

Bottom line: the television is wrecking your health, your ability to think critically, and your relationships with the people you care about the most. It’s also a colossal waste of time. I challenge you to turn it off for 30 days and see what happens. Tip: do something constructive with the time!

Get Rid of Toxic Relationships

This one is hard, because it involves cutting people out of our lives. However, once this is accomplished, you will wish you had done it years ago. But what is a “toxic relationship”? The simple answer is that there is more negative energy in the relationship than positive energy. To take that a step further, even if the balance is 40% negative and 60% positive, there is still a lot of negativity, which means it’s tearing you down instead of building you up. Sometimes these relationships are with spouses or partners. Sometimes they’re with friends. Sometimes they’re with family members.

I’m going to give you a golden key here, and I want you to remember this, if nothing else: Being related to someone does not obligate you to them in any way. That’s right, you don’t owe your time or energy to someone who is tearing you down, even if it’s a parent or a sibling. You are free to end that relationship if it’s having a negative impact on your life, and you don’t have to explain yourself. So many people are continually drug through the proverbial mud year after year by someone, and they put up with it simply because they happened to be born into that particular family. FACT: The only person who can obligate you to someone else is you, and you can end that obligation at any time. Don’t chain yourself to the whipping post.

Sometimes great friendships can evolve into toxic relationships over the years. This often happens when one person takes a life path that leads them to bigger and better things, and the other person does not. In the beginning they’re happy for you and supportive, but as time goes on and gulf widens, it can turn into animosity, jealousy, and contempt.

It’s emotionally difficult to cut people out of our lives, even when we know we need to. It’s important to take care of yourself during this process, and having a therapist to talk to is a great way to get through it. A therapist is cheaper than cable TV, so you’ll be able to afford it after you get rid of the television.

Get Rid of Gender Role Expectations

One of the ways that family, religion, culture and society screw people up is by assigning household roles based on gender. Traditionally, the man works, mows the yard, and washes the car. The woman raises the kids, cooks, cleans, shops, and does what she’s told. Also traditionally, the man slaps the woman if she talks back to him, and punches her in the eye if supper isn’t ready on time. Being traditional for the sake of being traditional isn’t always the best approach to a happy lifestyle.

In today’s world where both the husband and the wife have a career, it’s still common to find the woman doing most of the household chores. This is one of the biggest stress points in a relationship, and one of the leading causes of divorce. If this is a factor in your life, you need to fix it. Again, the therapist is a great resource, so find one and get some help if you need it.

If you are sharing a home with someone, you should split the chores in a way that makes sense for both of you. Doing laundry isn’t a gender-specific task, nor is cooking, parenting or anything else. Don’t let yourself be gender-cast by anyone, especially not your significant other. This will absolutely destroy happiness over time. Just because your parents did it that way doesn’t mean you should. Learn to think about things and understand why you live the way you live, and make changes when necessary.

To take this a step further, I’ll give you another golden key: It’s okay for a woman to make more money than her husband. Yes, that’s right, you can be in a successful, healthy, happy relationship in which the woman is the breadwinner. How do I know? I’m in one. I’m living it every day. My wife makes twice as much money as I do. I also do a lot of household chores, which would traditionally be considered “woman’s work” since I work from home. It just makes sense to do it that way in our house. Does that make me less of a man? No, of course not. As a matter of fact, it makes me a bigger man than many, because I don’t have to dominate my wife in order to satisfy my ego.

Make a Decision, and Take Action

What do you want to be able to say about your life when you are old? What changes do you need to make now so that can happen? What are you waiting for? A happier life is what happens when you remove the negative things from it.

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J. Boyd Long is an author, blogger, website developer, and the CFO of Springhill Equine Veterinary Clinic. In his spare time (ha!) he likes to paint, read, canoe, and hike in the wilderness. You can subscribe to this blog in the blue block, and future blogs will be delivered to your email. Warning: Subscribing may increase your awesomeness quotient. Please feel free to comment, and share this blog on your favorite social media page! To learn more, please visit JBoydLong.com.

4 Tips for Creating Success in Small Business

4 Tips for Creating Success in Small Business

by | Jan 21, 2018 | Business, Success

4 Tips For Creating Success in Small Business

It’s hard to be successful.

If success it was easy, everyone would be rolling it. The truth is, it’s hard to run a small business regardless of the type. Ask anyone who owns a restaurant, a landscaping company, a real estate agency, or a veterinary clinic. Ask anyone who makes a living as a writer, or a plumber, or a hair stylist. Anyone who is self-employed. Are you one of these people? Are you struggling to keep things going? You’re not alone!

One of my favorite quotes is this: Experience is something you get ten minutes after you needed it. Even if you have a great mentor, a great coach, a solid support team, and sufficient resources to do whatever it is that you do, you still have to figure it out as you go. You still have to jump in the deep end every day and learn how to swim, especially in the early years. You can and should seek guidance, but the only way to fully learn it is to do it. As they say: experience is the best teacher. Here are 4 tips to help you along the way.

  1. Realize that Hard and Bad do not mean the same thing.

Hard: adjective. Difficult to do or accomplish; fatiguing

If you are considering going into business for yourself, whether part-time or full-time, you need to know a few things. Arguably the most important thing to know is that it’s going to be hard, but that’s okay. You’re going to work harder and struggle more than you ever have, but that’s okay. It’s the nature of the beast. Hard does not mean bad. It doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing. It just means you have to want it more than anything else.

One of the reasons it’s hard is that you are often isolated and alone. As social creatures, we rely on one another for input on everything. When you are running the show, there’s no supervisor to turn to for guidance, no one to offer an opinion or give you feedback. This can be scary, and it can be stressful. It’s important to build a network of professional contacts that you can engage with, and it’s really important to find a mentor of some kind. A mentor is someone who has done what you are trying to do, and can give you expert guidance. These people may not be there for you in the moment, but they’re there for you to follow up with later, and that’s a huge help.

  1. Don’t rely on the friends and family network for feedback

When you need honest, objective advice, don’t expect to get it from your friends and family. Their job is to support you, not your business. They are going to be concerned about hurting your feelings, and will often be incapable of telling you what you need to hear. That’s why you need to be part of a peer group. There are a lot of Facebook groups for whatever it is that you do, and strangers who know your line of work can give you invaluable insight into your situation with blunt honesty. They have the expertise to help your business, and the emotional detachment to tell you the truth.

It takes some time and experience to develop the thick skin required to hear the truth without being devastated by it. We need to know if we are making a colossal mistake, and it can hurt to find that out, especially when we have put our heart and soul into something. However, if you want to put your very best out there, and maximize your chances of success, this is something you have to learn to embrace. This is especially true when we are trying to do our own marketing and create our own advertisements.

  1. Embrace Structure

Some people are naturally inclined to be structured, and some people are naturally inclined to be chaotic. It’s important to know which way you are wired. If you are a chaos person, you will have to work extra hard to be successful. It’s still doable, but you have to create some structure for yourself.

Structure is important in a business for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, you need to keep track of every penny that comes and goes through your business, and that’s no easy task. I’m fortunate in that I enjoy bookkeeping, and I’m naturally very organized (some call it OCD, but I know where everything is, and my books are always up-to-date). If you struggle with this, you need to either design a strict regimen that you hold yourself to, or you need to hire someone to do it for you. Taking a bucket filled with a year’s receipts, credit card statements, and bank statements to a CPA and hoping to get your taxes done is not the best way to handle it. If you don’t know how to use QuickBooks, which means inputting every expense and income item, and reconciling all of the accounts each month, you need to do yourself a favor and learn how. Take a class, or find someone to teach you. It’s important.

Other structure points are important, too. You need to make lists of things that need to be done today, this week, and this month, and make sure you use and update them. You should create a checklist for recurring tasks so that nothing gets overlooked. Use a calendar on your phone to remind you of upcoming things. Don’t rely on your memory to keep your business running.

  1. Commit to Continuous Improvement

Society, business, technology, and processes change constantly, and you have to evolve with it or you will get left behind. There are a lot of resources out there that will help you get better at everything you do. There’s no reason to be an army of one, blundering around learning every lesson the hard way. Seek out other people who are doing what you do, and build a network of professional contacts. Share notes, share experiences, and help each other grow. You can find professional groups on MeetUp, Facebook, and other online forums. Your local Chamber of Commerce can also guide you toward local resources.

Another great way to learn more about running your business is to subscribe to podcasts. If you don’t regularly listen to podcasts, you are missing out on a huge free resource. Find a podcast app for your phone (I use Stitcher, but it can be any of them), and browse the Business topics until you find Entrepreneurs. In this category, there are some terrific weekly podcasts like Finding Mastery, StoryBrand, and Entreleadership, just to name a few. You can even listen to past episodes, which I highly recommend doing. These podcasts are filled with interviews of successful people, and you can learn a hundred lifetime’s worth of experiences by listening to them, and tweak your own business practices with what you learn.

Life, which includes running your business, is a journey. It’s all about taking each step, and making it better than the step before it. The destination is important, but the process of getting there is where your focused energy has to be applied. Always be willing to learn, and never assume that you know everything that you need to know. Now then, let’s get to work! (You can start by subscribing to this blog in the box below).

 

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J. Boyd Long is an author, blogger, website developer, and the CFO of Springhill Equine Veterinary Clinic. In his spare time (ha!) he likes to paint, read, canoe, and hike in the wilderness. You can subscribe to this blog in the blue block, and future blogs will be delivered to your email. Warning: Subscribing may increase your awesomeness quotient. Please feel free to comment, and share this blog on your favorite social media page! To learn more, please visit JBoydLong.com.

How To Increase Your Financial IQ

How To Increase Your Financial IQ

by | Jan 7, 2018 | Finance

How To Increase Your Financial IQ

We all know about IQ, and what you’ve got is what you’ve got. Some of you may know about EQ, or Emotional Intelligence, and this is something that we all need to improve on, but that’s a topic for another blog. Today we’re going to talk about Financial IQ, or FQ. I wanted to title it Financial Understanding Quotient, but suggesting that you may have a lousy FUQ seemed like it could be taken wrong, so we’ll stick with FQ.

Understand Your Spending Habits

The first thing you need to realize is that most people don’t buy what they need, they buy what they want. They buy what makes them feel good. Go to any gas station and park for an hour and people-watch. You’ll see beater cars that are falling apart, and the driver will go inside and get a pack of smokes, a case of beer, and a handful of lottery tickets. If you go ask that guy about getting a better car, he’ll tell you he can’t afford a car payment. He doesn’t realize that he has a $400-a-month gas station habit that’s keeping him out of a decent ride.

Another common thing is spending everything we make: buying the most expensive house/car we can afford, moving up to the next cable package when we get a raise, etc. Half of Americans live paycheck to paycheck with little to no savings. We live in a consumption culture, so we’re doing exactly what we’ve been trained to do, but it’s not in our best interests to live this way.

Where Does It Go?

There are some basic categories that our general purchases fall into. Analyze each thing you buy, and see which of the following categories it fits into:

Essentials: Real food from the grocery store, gas, house payment, electricity, insurance, medicine, car repairs, a new washing machine when the old one dies, and things like that. These are not expenses that we can avoid, nor are they frivolous in nature.

Feel Good: Starbucks, soda, Gatorade, booze, restaurants, unnecessary clothes, movies, cable TV, vacations, make-up, manicures, books, hobby things, etc

There’s nothing wrong with buying some Feel Good things, but you need to be smart about how often you buy, and where you are getting things. If you are trying to save money, or shrink your budget, you need to limit your Feel Good purchases. Lots of people are visual leaners, so using a budgeting tool can help you see how much you’re spending on these things every month, and where you can make some changes. There are some great free budget spreadsheets available through Excel, and other online resources.

Emotional Buy: This is the shop-aholic, compulsive spender, “but it was on sale, I had to buy it” person. The goods/services purchased were not necessary except to make you feel better temporarily.

It’s important to know why you’re buying something, and just to be clear, the fact that it was on sale is not a good reason to buy something. Is it an emotional buy? Are you feeling down/sad/mad/hurt, and subconsciously you know that buying yourself something frivolous will make you feel better? These purchases are often followed by guilt or remorse. That’s an addiction thing, just like drinking or drugs. Be honest with yourself about your motives, and if you have a problem, get some help. There are 12-step groups that are free and effective.

Status Buy: Things that you buy to impress other people.

Some of the things we buy are pure ego. We buy them to affect how other people perceive us. One of the current fads I see people throwing large amounts of money at is the jacked-up truck with massive tires, custom rims, and the back end slammed to the ground. This is a pure Status Buy, because it has absolutely no other function. Other things would be expensive/high fashion clothes and accessories, tech gadgets, expensive watches, jewelry, cars, etc. The money spent on things in this category would be better spent on counseling so that you don’t need to buy things to impress other people.

Impulse/ Bad Buy: Anything at a gas station except gas, high-interest financing (Rent-to-Own places, payday loans, title loans, bad car loans, credit card debt), anything you can’t afford but buy anyway, recreational drugs, etc

I have a friend who is addicted to gas stations. He goes 2 or 3 times a day and gets something to drink, and maybe a granola bar or a pack of cigarettes. For what he spends in a day at the gas station, he could buy in bulk at a grocery store and it would last him a week or longer. He’s wasting at least $300 a month, and he could save that without cutting his consumption simply by buying smart and breaking a habit. My advice? Pay at the pump, and don’t ever go inside a gas station.

Anything that’s on the Bad Buy list needs to be dealt with. Paying off credit card debt is paramount to financial freedom. As your Financial IQ increases and your buying habits improve, then you won’t need to finance things with high interest rates, or take out payday loans.

Create New Spending Habits As You Build Your Financial IQ

Being conscious of your actions will help you increase your Financial IQ. Get in the habit of categorizing everything you buy, whether it’s at a store or online. What kind of purchase is it? If it’s a non-essential, reconsider it. Again, there’s nothing wrong with buying Feel Good things, but if it’s going to negatively impact your budget or your goals, then you always have the option of putting it back. It will still be there later. If it’s an Emotional, Status, or Impulse buy, just don’t do it.

Set some financial goals, and make a savings plan for the money you’re now going to have. Put a specific amount into your savings account, or your 401K, or your coffee can in the freezer every payday. Only 25% of Americans have more than $8,000 in savings, and that’s the quarter you want to be a part of!

J. Boyd Long is an author, blogger, website developer, and the CFO of Springhill Equine Veterinary Clinic. In his spare time (ha!) he likes to paint, read, canoe, and hike in the wilderness. You can subscribe to this blog in the blue block, and future blogs will be delivered to your email. Warning: Subscribing may increase your awesomeness quotient. Please feel free to comment, and share this blog on your favorite social media page! To learn more, please visit JBoydLong.com.

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Life Happens Outside Your Comfort Zone

Life Happens Outside Your Comfort Zone

by | Dec 31, 2017 | Goals, Self Improvement

Life Happens Outside Your Comfort Zone

Living VS Existing

Do you ever meet people who seem to have an amazing life, with exciting activities and various things going on all the time? Most of us know someone like that. Now, let’s look at the other end of the spectrum: do you know anyone who doesn’t do anything other than work (if they have a job), watch TV, and sleep? Most of us know lots of people like that. For some people, existing is enough; it’s all they want out of life. For some of us, existing isn’t enough; we need more.

Life happens outside your comfort zone. If you want more out of life, then you have to be ready to step away from the same old, same old; you have to be willing to do things you’ve never done before, learn knew things, meet new people, explore the unknown. This is a scary experience. You’re going to feel uncomfortable and nervous, like you don’t know what you’re doing. That’s okay! That means you’re doing it right.

Jump in the Deep End

Whatever it is that you want to do, the only way to do it is to do it. If you want to start playing soccer with the open league on Saturdays, the only way to do it is to go to the field on Saturday and get involved. There’s nothing wrong with doing research, don’t get me wrong. With some things, proper research is critical.

The trap lies within the tendency to “research” whatever it is indefinitely, and never actually get started. We judge ourselves by our intentions (rather than our actions), so it’s easy to convince ourselves that we’re living, doing stuff, getting more out of life, etc, when all we’re really doing is thinking about it. So, set a timeframe that’s realistic, learn what you need to learn, and get started.

Judge Not…

There are two ways to fool yourself about how you’re doing. One is to measure yourself against someone who is a master at what you want to do. The other is to measure yourself against someone who is a novice at what you want to do. Neither one of these is an accurate way to measure how you are doing.

The only true way to measure your progress is to measure yourself against yourself. Where are you at now compared to six months ago? A year ago? If you’re in the same place, then you haven’t improved much. That’s okay if you are where you want to be. For me, I have a long way to go. However, as I write this, I’m miles ahead of where I was last year at this time.

For example: a year ago, I had just completed my first book, Adventures of the Horse Doctor’s Husband. I didn’t know that I needed beta readers to help me find and fix problems with the writing before I moved forward with it. I didn’t know how to find an agent or an editor (or if I even needed one), I didn’t know that my writing skills were lacking, I didn’t know how to do anything that I wanted to do to get my book published. So, I went to a writer’s seminar, where I met some people. I joined a writer’s group. I began building a network of contacts. I went to a major writer’s conference, where I learned all kinds of things and met some industry professionals. I found online resources that taught me a lot about the processes. I planned and wrote two more books, each better than the first one. I learned things, I improved my process, and I expanded my network.

If I measure myself against Stephen King, then I am a failure. If I measure myself against someone who has written a rough manuscript but doesn’t know what to do next, then I am doing great. Neither one of these are accurate, though, and they don’t tell me how I’m doing.

In 1 year, my circle of writing people has increased from 1 to over 75. My knowledge on the craft of writing has increased tremendously. My experience has increased through the writing of 2 more books. My knowledge about the publishing process has increased significantly. My goals for 2018 outline a very specific process for getting my 3 manuscripts turned into published books by this time next year. Next year, I should be able to compare where I’m at then to where I was at when I wrote this blog and see major forward progress. That’s how I accurately measure myself.

Life Happens Outside Your Comfort Zone

You must accept that change is the name of the game. If you want your life to be different in some way, then you can’t be resistant to change. It sounds like an obvious point, but you have to be conscious about it, because most of us are naturally resistant to change. One of the best tools I’ve found for this is listening to podcasts for small businesses. Some of them, such as StoryBrand and Social Media Marketing (two great podcasts, free tip!) interview top-level business coaches and business leaders every week. I have learned an immense amount from the very best experts about things I didn’t even know I needed to know.

One of the things they say all the time is that life happens outside your comfort zone. Top CEO’s of major corporations talk about feeling like they’re in over their head, and how they learned how to keep on going from someone else. How to avoid becoming paralyzed by fear. These are things I need to know as a small business owner, because I deal with them, too. Guess what? I’ve found all sorts of ways to apply things I learn from those people to seemingly unrelated things, like my website development business, my writing, and my personal life. It’s all tied together, and I don’t have to learn all the lessons in life the hard way. I can learn from others, and podcasts are a fantastic resource for that.

It Never Ends

Life is all about the journey. The journey, at least for some of us, is all about growing, improving, learning, becoming better, doing more, and living. I want more, and I’m willing to do whatever I have to do to make that happen. You can, too. You can develop the discipline and the knowledge to do what you want to do, be who you want to be. You can start today. You can start right now. Go. Do. Be. Live.

J. Boyd Long is an author, blogger, website developer, and the CFO of Springhill Equine Veterinary Clinic. In his spare time (ha!) he likes to paint, read, canoe, and hike in the wilderness. You can subscribe to this blog in the big blue block, and future blogs will be delivered to your email. Warning: Subscribing may increase your awesomeness quotient. Please feel free to comment, and share this blog on your favorite social media page! To learn more, please visit JBoydLong.com 

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Set Yourself Up For Success

Set Yourself Up For Success

by | Dec 24, 2017 | Goals, Self Improvement, Self-Awareness

Set Yourself Up For Success

Set yourself up for success: it sounds obvious, right? No one is going to intentionally set themselves up for failure, right? Wrong. We do it all the time. Self-doubt, or lack of confidence, makes us do things that keep us from succeeding. That’s right, we take specific action to avoid succeeding at something we want. We believe that we can’t do any better than we’re doing. We don’t think we have what it takes. No one in our family has done it. Our friends don’t support us. Whatever. We have an endless list of reasons.

Inaction is an Action

One of the most common forms of self-sabotage is doing nothing. Opportunity comes knocking, we deliberate, we hem-haw around, we fantasize, and opportunity leaves. Then we either get depressed about how good things might have been, or we go the sour grapes route and tell ourselves it probably wouldn’t have been very good anyway.

It’s also very common for our friends and family to keep us down. They tell us that we can’t do it, and that we shouldn’t try. They remind us of all the times we’ve already tried and failed. They mean well, as they’re just trying to protect us from failure and pain, but they are doing us more harm than good. Sometimes doing more in life means changing out some of the people in our life. Growing pains.

Develop An Attitude of Gratitude

The first thing you need to do to set yourself up for success is check your attitude. Do you find that you are critical, dubious, and skeptical of everything that’s outside your bubble? If so, you need to start retraining your brain to think positively instead of negatively. That sounds hard, and that’s because it is hard. I know, because I did it. I was one of those people that could find a fault with anything, and a reason to pass up on every opportunity. Guess what? I got tired of living and thinking that way, so I changed. You can, too.

Know Thyself

If you haven’t taken a Myers-Briggs personality assessment, you need to do that today. It takes about 15 minutes, and it will help you for the rest of your life. In a nutshell, there are 16 personality types. Once you know which one you are, then you read up on the characteristics of your personality type (another 10 minutes). That 25-minute investment will help you gain self-awareness, which will guide you to make better decisions based on your tendencies.

For example, I am an INFJ. I know that I am extremely idealistic, which is the core of my personality type. Therefore, I’m never going to be successful trying to scam people. I’m not even going to be a good salesperson, because if I don’t believe in something 100%, I’m not going to be able to push it. I also know that I put 150% effort into everything I do, and therefore I need for my job to matter. Knowing my personality type keeps me out of the wrong career fields.

You can take the free assessment online at www.16personalities.com

set yourself up for successWalk Through The Fear

One of the things I was amazed to learn is that everyone experiences fear, even successful people. The thing is, successful people don’t get mired down in the fear. They acknowledge it and keep on going. My mentor was fond of using a reference from one of the darkest points in our country’s history to nail home the point. He said, you gotta keep walking. When you hear the dogs barking, you keep walking. When you hear the men shouting, you keep walking. When you see the torches burning, you keep walking. You gotta keep walking to be free.

It’s about sticking with it, and not giving up. Persistence, tenacity, determination. Refusing to quit when it gets hard, or scary. It’s always going to be hard and scary, and that’s okay. Fear should keep us from touching the hot stove, but it shouldn’t keep us from going in the kitchen. Recognize it as a tool instead of a master.

Believe In Yourself

If you really want to set yourself up for success, you have to believe that you can do whatever it is that you want to do. Most people won’t ever even come close to achieving what they’re capable of. Therefore, you shouldn’t do what most people do. Find a mentor, someone who has what you want, and do what they do. Learn from them. See that they are just a person like you, and that you can do anything they have done, and maybe more.

Michael Phelps isn’t a super-human, he’s a guy that lives up to his potential and swims through the fear. He acts, he takes opportunities. He believes in himself, and he accepts that failure is part of it, and that it’s okay to fail. He tries anyway. How about Martin Luther King Jr.? Do you think he ever experienced fear and self-doubt? You bet he did. And he still got up every day and tried. Elon Musk. Winston Churchill. Taylor Swift. All people, all have dealt with fear and self-doubt, all walked through the fear and succeeded. None of them were born with a superpower. You can do what they have done.

Set Yourself Up For Success

You don’t have to become a world-renowned celebrity to have success in life, and you shouldn’t judge yourself by impossible standards. Determine what you want to do with your life, and figure out what you need to do to accomplish that. Then set a series of goals to get you from here to there. You need to know what the definition of success is for you, based on your goals. Believe in yourself. Follow someone else who has walked the same path. Dream big. Live big. Set yourself up for success. You can do it!

J. Boyd Long is an author, blogger, website developer, and the CFO of Springhill Equine Veterinary Clinic. In his spare time (ha!) he likes to paint, read, canoe, and hike in the wilderness. You can subscribe to this blog in the blue block, and future blogs will be delivered to your email. Warning: Subscribing may increase your awesomeness quotient. Please feel free to comment, and share this blog on your favorite social media page! To learn more, please visit JBoydLong.com.

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The Side Hustle

The Side Hustle

by | Dec 16, 2017 | Finance, Goals

The Side Hustle: Take Control of Your Life (and your finances)

So much of what we do is dictated by how much money we have available. We all have things we’d like to do, like spend a week in Europe, but it’s not something we’re likely to afford. In my last blog, we talked about ways to save money so that you can enjoy life a little more. This week we’re going to look at ways that you can take control of your life, and your finances, with a side hustle.

If you’ve got a good job, keep it!

A lot of us live in an area where the number of places to work are pretty limited. You might even be maxed out on what you can earn without moving somewhere else, and with spouses in their own career, and kids in school, moving isn’t always a good option. That’s okay! You can increase your income right from home if you’re willing to put in the time and effort.

Invest a little, advance a lot

One of the positions I inherited when I began running the business aspects at our veterinary clinic was Webmaster. Ooh, sexy title, right? I didn’t know the first thing about websites, so I spent about two minutes on Google and found an online class through my local community college. For $109, I took a six-week online class in basic WordPress. When I got done with that, I took the advanced course for another $109. (ed2go.com offers a lot of affordable classes, check them out.)

So, in three months I learned all about building WordPress websites. After practicing on our website for a while and finding my groove, I built a website from scratch for a friend. Then I built one for another business here in town, and then one for a social organization. Suddenly, I had a side hustle of building and maintaining websites. I don’t have a lot of time to dedicate to it, but it generates about $600 a month for me, and I use that money to pay for the editing and production of my upcoming books, writers conferences, and so on.

YouTube is your friend

Depending on what you want to do, you might not have to spend any money to learn what you need to know. I have an artist friend who is a hands-on, crafty kind of person and likes making her own stuff. She found some how-to videos on YouTube about making your own watercolor paints, and decided to give it a shot. It took her a few tries to find a really great blend, but she stuck with it until the paints were just right. She decided to open a shop on Etsy.com and try selling her handmade paints, and that has blossomed into a thriving side hustle for her.

Find Your Groove, Build Your Side Hustle

Handmade items are all the rage these days. People are choosing artisan crafts and products over mass-produced items, and they’re willing to pay the extra price for them. You can easily learn how to make really nice scented hand soaps and laundry soaps, hand-carved wooden spoons for the kitchen, crocheted personalized potholders, candles, jewelry, and a million other things. Are you a welder? People LOVE horseshoe art, giant chickens made out of scrap metal, and things like that. Websites like Etsy, eBay, and Amazon give you a ready-made platform to sell your wares, and you can do it all from home on the weekends.

If you are into more intellectual things, you can do bookkeeping for a local business, or create marketing emails. Almost all local businesses need someone to create and post social media content on Facebook. Do you know how to make quality memes? It’s not hard, if you’re willing to learn. Were you an English major? There are a lot of authors out there who need an editor, or a proofreader. Maybe you can sell your photos on Shutterstock, or become an event photographer for local weddings. Do you have a drone? Drone videos of events or businesses can be a good side hustle, as well.

What are you willing to sacrifice?

Having a successful side business requires a lot of commitment and self-discipline, just like having your own fulltime business. You’ll have to change your lifestyle to fit it in. You’ll probably have to cut out something to make the time, but for most people the only thing being sacrificed is sleeping in on the weekends and watching TV. You have to decide what you want out of life, and what you are willing to do to get it. If your purpose in life is to binge-watch TV shows and movies, or play video games, then this probably isn’t a viable option for you. If you want to take control of your life, your time, and your money so that you can do more, then creating a side hustle is a great way to make it happen.

Crossing the I’s and dotting the T’s

No one wants to get in trouble with The Man over taxes. As you are gathering information and forming your plan, make sure you read up on the business regulations in your state. It’s important to track every penny you spend and earn with your side business. You might need to form a legit legal business entity, which is much easier than you think it is. $300 and ten minutes on Legal Zoom will take care of most of that, and the only other big thing is opening a separate bank account for your business. Some towns or counties require you to pay an annual business license fee (mine is $100 a year), but again, a few minutes on the internet will help you find out what you need to do.

  Go Do What You Do!

If you’re tired of watching others live the dream on TV, then sell your TV and do something productive with your time. You’d be amazed how good it feels to do something like this; to create your own business and know that you made this happen, your hard work and effort brought it to life, and it’s generating the money you need to go to Comic-Con, or DisneyLand, or to buy that new car, or to build a nice retirement account. Don’t be a victim. Take control of your life, and live it!

 

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J. Boyd Long is an author, blogger, website developer, and the CFO of Springhill Equine Veterinary Clinic. In his spare time (ha!) he likes to paint, read, canoe, and hike in the wilderness. You can subscribe to this blog in the blue block, and future blogs will be delivered to your email. Warning: Subscribing may increase your awesomeness quotient. Please feel free to comment, and share this blog on your favorite social media page! To learn more, please visit JBoydLong.com.