The Learning Snowball

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

I am so thankful to be able to bring my family up to exquisite Vermont for the Holiday. It is ironic that I am here writing a blog on downsizing and being more careful with money, and I am sitting in a second home that I bought back when I had no business purchasing something like this! I’ll save the subject of taking (calculated) financial risks for another post, though. In the meantime I will enjoy the irony.

To all my friends who asked for my signature Thanksgiving recipe, you can find it here:

Cornish Game Hens with Chorizo Corn Bread Stuffing and Macque Choux

I would also like to give a great big “shout-out” to the staff and programmers at OmmWriter. I downloaded this invaluable this software from their site last week, and it is an incredible writing program to help one “get into the zone” in peace. Please check it out, and tell them I sent you!  This software is a real must for all of you writers out there.

I have learned so many new things since starting this blog last month. Crazy enough, only a few of these learning objectives were planned; the others were a by-product of what I will hereby call the “Learning Snowball”. I’ll list my new skills and include links to where I learned them, then italicize the resulting “snowball effect” skills that came after.  Please keep in mind that if I can do this stuff, anyone can.

  1. I learned how to swim.  What followed was a desire to learn more about fitness in general and how to cross train in order to differentiate my fitness skills and goals; such as running, weight lifting, and (in the Spring) biking.
  2.  I learned how to create a WordPress site for a blog. Oh man, where do I begin?!? Discovering WordPress opened up an entire different world. Let’s just say that what you see on this site thus far represents everything I have learned. Additionally I learned about Afilliate Programs, Google Adsense, MailChimp, Photoshop, widgets, plugins, SEO optimization, HTML code….the list goes on!

I subsequently read 5 books and several blogs on blogging and the business of blogging. Some great books that I now have on my Kindle are ”Blogging the Smart Way” by Jeff Bullas, “Why Now is the Time to Crush It!” by Gary Vaynerchuk, and “Likeable Social Media” by Dave Kerpen. These books are only scratching the surface on the subject of blogging and social media, but that’s the cool part! There is more to learn…. 

In the coming month, my goal is to learn:

  1.  How to write an EBook (I will definitely be writing one in the next year!)
  2. How to outsource work for different projects I am involved with (you can bet I will be blogging about this quite a bit!).
  3. How to run an effective Kickstarter campaign for my non-profit

The greatest thing about the “Learning Snowball” is the after-effects of the learning. In one month, the way I communicate with people through the internet, run my business, and think about what my kids will need to be able to do and accomplish with technology as they get older has forever changed. I am only bummed that I did not learn this stuff sooner!

Below is an interview with Tim Ferris by Leo Babouta of Zen Habits. The interview is about learning and maintaining a passion for continuing to learn new things. My friend Nancy turned me on to Babouta and I am so happy she did. His blog and projects are truly incredible. I’ll admit, Tim Ferris is one of those “hardcore” folks I have written about; we all aren’t wired the way he is in regards to learning more stuff in perpetuity, but his methods and philosophy of learning new things is sound and we need to all pay attention. I especially love what he has to say about procrastination, and also how to learn like crazy while still maintaining a full time job. Enjoy!

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