LegendaryLife Blog

I’ve been traveling for a while now and am finally staying put for the next month or so while I wait for things to sort themselves out with (I hope) Australia but with each new place, you see new habits.

Going from a cabin in the woods back to “civilization”, I noticed my uncle took a break from the regular stock market trading and started playing poker online using the FaceBook system… don’t quite know how it works but he seems to enjoy it. It got me thinking of how marketing is done by poker companies, as they are a dime a dozen nowadays… the old advertisements for free poker at PokerStars.net on television, knowing full well that people would only remember the .com I thought was a wonderful marketing ploy. Those commercials for the .net where everywhere… funny how that ended-up for the guy.

I believe the owner of this got his domain was taken over by GoDaddy a while back because he, making millions of dollars online, forgot to renew one or both domains. There are tons of other poker sites online as well, you see them on TV every afternoon during the weekend up here.

I’m unsure if it’s the same owner but another poker site that seems to have given this .com pay vs .net free marketing system recently is PartyPoker.com.

All I got to say is that I hope these guys don’t forget to renew their domain like the PokerStars guys… otherwise, we’ll be reading about them online in forums!

As for me, I’m not that big a fan of Poker… I prefer to keep doing my 3D modeling, animation and growing my online businesses… but the thought did occur to me more often than not to get other domains for my sites, so instead of just WoodMarvels.com, getting the .net variation – not sure as to the value though… from my stats, most people by default look for the .com on things.

The nice thing about both sites is that they allow you to play online for free… so if you are a big fan of poker – no point in buying these video games at the store, you can just do like my uncle… spend endless hours playing this stuff at home. Unlike the stock market, you can’t lose your savings playing the free versions of these games.

I’m constantly reminded at how important it is to be well diversified, financially speaking. If you learn only one skill that provides but one stream of revenue, you are ASKING for trouble should that stream become a trickle or worse, be damned upstream.

Now, more than ever, learning isn’t something just done during your school-age period but over your entire lifetime. Unlike the “old times”, you are never too old to stop learning new things to keep yourself relevant in the global economy we all find ourselves into. Competition isn’t locally but worldwide so people can no longer afford to remain stagnant in the head when it comes to knowledge and expertise.

I’m to the point now in my life where I have money coming from several buckets, any one bucket dries-out I’m still fine financially… this is the way to live in the future. The nice thing about having several buckets is the freedom it affords me in making decisions that are relevant to my aspirations and goals in life. I know what I want, and increasingly, have the financial confidence to pursuit it without worrying about financial “what-ifs”.

Diversification, especially in the area of financials, is essential. The more buckets you have to pull from, the more water you can devote to any one idea… increasing the chance of any one planted idea growing into a money tree!

I had the idea for HowToChinese.com mulling in my head for a while but finally the circumstances were right to give it a real go. I just did some major software upgrades for my other site, WoodMarvels.com and really wanted to put it through its paces and get into green screening. 3D is great fun, but doing only one thing over and over again doesn’t lead to much growth over the long term, you need to infuse some new knowledge into the fold.

How it began

I bought a camera a little over a year ago for the sole purpose of doing some video, so I made damn sure it was able to film at 720p. The camera cost me about 300$US – for a point-and-shoot, on the high-end but I really needed something very compact yet able to take both pictures and video at the highest quality. I did have a DSLR camera, Nikon D-40 which took AMAZING pictures but I also missed a lot of pictures due to its bulk and inability to do video.

300$US point-and-shoot camera… check!

I already love photography after working on a large body of work for another site, DreamClue.com – yes, I took ALL those pictures along with the description. Over 1200 before I needed a break… taught me about SEO and how to take a decent picture through trial and error.

Photographic knowledge and portfolio to dip into for the video… check!

Music production is something I added to my WoodMarvels.com videos for fun and really enjoy it, so I made sure to write a little tune for this video series, not only to break-up the teaching segments into manageable bites but to also allow me to show-off some photography! The “picture breaks” idea was born.

Music production… check!

The gf was a bonus, I never planned on doing the videos myself, I’m a more “behind the scenes” kind of guy but when I approached my gf about this idea… she jumped on it and I’m very happy she did! She was a teacher as was/am/was I so lesson planning and making classes fun came second nature to the two of us. She writes the script, I edit and then we review one last time.

Superstar to head the videos… check!

Using a green screen is great fun, but up until a week ago, I spent about 50 cents (Yes, China is that cheap to live in) and glued some green “paper” to the wall. That was the greenscreen! Headaches with lights, reflections and size… only 2 meters wide, about a meter high.

Suffice it to say, that was upgraded big time about a week ago… the number one headache gone! You can REALLY see the difference in production quality, just compare the videos BEFORE #10 to the current crop. Incredible! New screen is 3 meters x 3 meters (yes, it’s HUGE, folded in two the picture below) but now we have the flexibility to do whatever we want. Total cost about 35$US but well worth it.

The importance of a greenscreen can’t be overly emphasized… it’s what allows Lucky to have any background (static and animated) behind her… far more interesting than just a wall.

That’s all folks!

Other than teaching myself for many years about various production methods, softwares and visiting lots of studios, that is basically how to launch a start-up with little to no investment other than time and passion.

What’s in store in the future?

A lot, suffice it to say, like WoodMarvels.com is bringing woodcrafts into the 21st century, HowToChinese.com plans on doing the same with language learning methods. Most teachers are boring, as are their course material… something that HowToChinese.com never plans to be.

Looking back, it seems like every 6 months or so, I begin a new company in one way or another. I think the lessons learned by DOING something are far more valuable than not doing something or endlessly planning. One thing I have gotten better at with time though is seeing the long term opportunity of a project so that, from the get go… I have an exit or way of generating revenue from my time. This is something I never really cared about in the past but as life goes on, this kind of thinking is helping me hone my skills to waste as little time as possible.

Each new business bring with it new headaches but also great opportunities for both personal and professional learning. As long as you are having fun, the endeavor is worth it in my eyes, even if the financial payback (if there is one) is miles away.

WoodMarvels.com / 3DMarvels.com – learned about distributed manufacturing and international business. 3D practice is a bonus!

HowToChinese.com – learning about post-production, green screening and script writing

i3DS – learned about international manufacturing industry as well as product development with a minor in marketing

Dreamclue.com – learned about photography, search engine optimization and a heck of a lot of writing which allowed me to work on my subsequent books

Just keep plugging away and with time, things will work themselves out in the end.

From the moment we are born, our brains are given programs that decide our future, whether we realize this or not… they are incredibly deep within our unconscious and changing them is like walking through a mental minefield.

Brain = Computer. Culture = Software.

I struggle with getting over the software put into me growing-up on a continual basis, questioning it’s value to my life and whether it still remains relevant. For instance, during our formative years in school… I was NEVER taught that I could become my own boss. I was instead taught to become a teacher, a fireman, office worker (yuck!) and the list goes on. Striking things on your own was never part of my programming until much later in life when my parents, who are both teachers by trade, started their own business on the site. Then… the possibilities opened. New software was given to me about other ways of achieving success outside of the corporate/governmental world.

Rewriting our brains software

If you always grew-up thinking of one reality, it’s incredibly difficult for the brain to adapt at a later age, that another reality is possible. I saw a documentary about “child” suicide bombers in Afghanistan who grew-up in abject poverty, told to memorize the Koran and their whole lives that blowing yourself up is the best way to live your life. The result? They look forward to dying! You might say, that’s crazy… but the reality is that they have been programmed by people around them who think and behave int he same way. Trying to convince them that no, this is not the path you wish to take in your future and that these are all lies is like convincing an Evangelical Christian that the Bible is but a book of fairy tales. The mind just cannot believe or accept that this is even remotely possible and hence, regardless of the new information given… simply is unable to change or adapt to the new software given.

We are our software

Whether you wish to accept the fact that your life is closely governed, not by your thoughts, but by the software put into your brain by others, this is sadly a reality. Overcoming this should be a challenge taken up by everybody. Why? Well, innovation and free thinking can only be realized once you learn to question EVERYTHING! I was brought-up thinking like most people, you go to school, university, get married, have kids, work 9-5 at a job then retire. That’s easy enough to follow, it’s within my comfort zone. What is left out through is experiencing life, it’s been brought-up several times in studies that fully half of the adult population HATE THEIR JOBS. The quick answer is, quit your job, find something you love and move on with life… but if you have children, a mortgage, co-workers who are close friends. Well, you can see how challenging a hole our culture has dug for you.

Steps to rewriting yourself

1. Don’t take what you have for granted, ask yourself this very powerful question. If I were to die tomorrow, have I achieved everything I wanted out of life? If the answer is yes, then question if your goals have been too easy (you stayed within your comfort zone), if the answer is no… you have some equally harsh decisions to make.
2. Looking back on life, try to find instances where you “bucked the trend” set by others. If your life consists of being a lemming to marketing and fashion trends… ask yourself why you allow yourself to be so easily molded in the vision of others. It’s when you do something that others around you are not doing that you are truly an innovator, this needs to be cultured. It’s the only true time that your brain is overcoming your internal software. Nurture it!
3. Do something very out of the ordinary for yourself and those around you spontaneously on a very regular basis. Instead of celebrating Christmas on the 25th of December like everybody else… do it two weeks later when the bargains at stores can be had. This will not only save you a lot of money but also exercise your ability to think and act independently.

Don’t forget the reason for a strong culture and belief structure driven into us from a young age isn’t to make YOU happy, it’s to make OTHERS happy… possibly at your expense. Imagine corporations unable to find workers because they prefer to explore the world outside of an office setting, imagine governments having citizens refusing to pay taxes due to wasteful spending… imagine a world where the only limitation placed upon you was your ability to innovate from within regardless of who you were, beliefs, your position within society, economic or geographical location.

The Bottom Line

When life ceases to become a challenge, it cheapens in value.