One of the beauties of being self employed is your ability to literally dictate your schedule as the day goes. This weekend is going to be a busy weekend for all of us parents. Today happens to be my oldest daughters birthday and this morning, my second daughter received her very first award in her school today. It’s nice to have the freedom to just go. No approval from the boss, no worry over losing paid work hours….just the freedom to go and do.

Now as you all know, it is Halloween today and if you have a family, with children, your weekend is going to be busy. Get out with your kids. Be young again and dress up. Have a blast! But as I have always said, be your business. With what I do, I am able to integrate my business into my lifestyle. So just because I am off during the holidays doesn’t mean I’m not generating revenue. That’s the whole point of a home business. It integrates itself with your lifestyle. Some of my best days, weeks and months in my business have come when out having fun.

You become your business. You can’t really sell it to anyone. The only value given to it is what you give to it. Live your life and throw your business around it. If you are open and alert, marketing opportunities will be available to you almost anywhere you go and with nearly anything you do. Should you choose to jump on Facebook to see what your friends are up to, if you are your business, people will start asking questions. Should you choose to go to the store, if you are your business, conversations will start and people will ask what you do.

With a pocket full of business cards and drop cards, an open mind and a smile, opportunities to grow your home business are abundant. But you have to be looking. Once and entrepreneur, always an entrepreneur. In my opinion, if you are looking to get away from your business completely, the only option is to quit, sell it or get a job. The ones who are paid a wage can truly say, that when 6pm rolls around, they are OFF of work and don’t even have to think about it until the next morning the moment their alarm clock rings. With a business, it’s different. If it doesn’t consume you, within reason, you are probably getting mediocre results. The moment you allow yourself and your business mold together is the moment things start happening. That’s called passion.

So Happy Halloween everyone. As you are out tomorrow with your kids, look for opportunities. They will be everywhere!

Since this blog is all about Entrepreneurship, I figured that Entrepreneurship tools would also fall into my overall theme. I know that I am always on the lookout for cool tools to use online that will make it easier for me to do my business and to train others in my organization to better do theirs as well. And if you’re anything like me, I am all into visual learning….especially when it comes down to internet marketing.

So for those of you who are Skype users, there is a feature that allows you to share your computer screen with the person you are talking to. Now this is all in real time. In order to make it work, you must:

• Have the most recent version of Skype. At the time of this article, the version I have is 4.1.0.166

• Click on the person you would like to call, which opens a separate window for them, click on “Call” in the list of commands up top, click on “Share Your Screen.” When you do this, it will tell you that an audio call will begin as well.
• OR, Call the person you would like to share your screen with, once they answer, click on “Call” in the command bar up top then click on “Share Your Screen.”

Very simple but high quality. I have used it several times already. It’s a great, quick way to share your screen without having to set up an account with some other screen sharing company. There is one catch, as of right now, you can only share your screen with just one person at a time. You cannot share your screen with multiple users by adding them to the conference call. Maybe this is a feature that will be added in the near future. That would be cool!

Skype is an amazing tool, especially if you are doing an international business. The rates are next to nothing and the quality of the calls are pretty good. It has significantly reduced my phone bills and keeps me connected to all those that I mastermind with on a regular basis. Business just gets easier and easier!

While in Puerto Rico at this last event, I must have taken around 10 full pages of notes. Six of those were from Yossi Ghinsberg. The guy was a walking quote book and if you’re like me, you get more out of a simple, blunt and to the point statement than you do a long drawn out explanation. Simple minded! That’s me.

One of the things he said was, “I don’t dream when I sleep….the dreams keep me awake.” This statement had a little deeper meaning for me than what it might have intending. Now it’s obvious that we all dream when we sleep and if you’re anything like me, most dreams you might have really make no sense at all and have very little meaning. If you forget them the moment you wake up, it’s okay. But, every once in a while you might have a dream that wakes you up in the middle of the night because if feels as if you just had instant revelation or pure knowledge flow into your brain. Instead of being able to sleep you are prompted to get up and write it down so that you can remember it in the morning. It has you inspired and excited to face the next day. You now have an immediate purpose or a direction…. and that’s exciting! Don’t under estimate the power of your dreams. If you are on purpose, they can be a great source of direction to you.

How many of you just can’t wait until the days passes so that you can hit the pillow? On the other hand, how many of you just can’t find enough hours in the day to fulfill your passions and accomplish your goals, having to be forced to sleep while eagerly awaiting to start the next day? Some people love to dream without action and others love to dream in real time….in action. That’s the difference. One is really happening and the other is forgotten.

In a true dream, you should be awake. Stop sleeping through your dreams and start living them!

Yossi went on to say, “If you don’t have a purpose or a dream, that is the most dangerous place you can be.” If you don’t have a purpose, then you fall back into the default purpose….which is the purpose of those that have a purpose. This means YOU are the victim, the one being directed…not the one directing. That is default.

If your purpose is to help everyone else in the world achieve their purpose, the way to do it is proactively. A dream is only a dream and will never become reality without belief that it actually can. Today, define your purpose or your dream. What is it that you are here on Earth to do? Stop thinking of what others would have you do! What is it that YOU want to do? Now, write it down, IN DETAIL, and then go do it. You are right in the midst of your dreams. The only difference between a sleeping dream and that same dream awake, is that one is done without your body. Just include it next time. It really is that simple. And according to my watch, that time is NOW!

So yesterday I took the morning off to hand out with my one year old daughter while Amy volunteered at my daughters school. She volunteers every Monday, and so instead of trying to struggle with working around my daughter, I just take the morning off and hang out. One of the perks of being a home business Entrepreneur….the ability to dictate my own schedule day by day.

Now this particular morning, my one year old daughter decided to sleep in pretty late. She slept until around 9 am. While she was drooling, we had a few Javelina drop by for a quick bite to eat. And I got it on tape for you. Check it out:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8V6HguyRa1o[/youtube]

We have all heard of the common phrase “think outside the box!” At times, it is used WAY too much. While in Puerto Rico, Yossi Ghinsberg gave a description of the meaning of this so called, “box,” and how it effects our lives. At this very moment in time, as you read this post, you are using a box. It’s all about leaving the normal grind and getting in touch with nature. Enjoy the video!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4RcpMVLvM0[/youtube]

Yossi Ghinsberg has an amazing message. For those of you who follow this blog, my wife and I attended a conference in Puerto Rico last week that included Yossi as one of the speakers. The overall theme of this conference was “Exotic Adventures.” So all three speakers at this event had accomplished some sort of tremendous adventure and have a story to tell.

Yossi Ghinsberg

Yossi has a pretty thick accent, and at first, I was a little worried that I was going to suffer through his presentation. He started out pretty slow but picked up the pace pretty quickly. As he spoke, he sucked his audience into his story by his passion and the dramatic use of his words. His story began as he entered the uncharted jungles of the Amazon. Shortly after entering the Amazon, tragedy struck a member of their camp, a division happened among them and he found himself alone, in the middle of the Amazon, fighting for his life. His story of survival was the turning point in his life and one that I will not soon forget.

Without telling you the entire presentation he gave, I will tell you a few points that really hit home with me.

Yossi made a reference to fear, and how so many people in this world are controlled by it. Fear of losing their job, fear of failure, fear of the unknown, fear of heights, fear of talking to a pretty woman, fear of success. It dictates the very decisions we make and for the most part, when faced with fear, most move in the opposite direction. Of course they would. If you see something you are afraid of, you try to avoid it, go around it or shy away from it. Yossi has a different point of view. Instead of running, “When fear arises, head to it. Confront it. Say thank you for showing me the way!” How much more would we be able to accomplish if we all lived by that philosophy? When faced with fear, confront it, because most likely, that’s the way you should be going. Awesome!

“Our true power is revealed when we give it away…because our true purpose is to serve.” This quote came when he was describing a point in time during his exile in the Amazon when times weren’t so hopeful. He felt like dying and if I remember right, had just prayed to die. His was laying face down in the mud, his feet were shredded, he had no will to go on when all of the sudden he heard a voice. He looked to the side and saw a woman begging him to help her. Even though just moments before he had wanted to die, thinking all was lost, he jumped up and grabbed the woman by the hand and started moving towards the river. Well, the woman was not real. She was a vision, an imagination, hallucination or whatever you want to call it. But the principle here is….that when he had already given up on himself, without the will-power or strength to carry on, he still had strength enough to help someone else. “Our true purpose is to serve.”

These are just a few points I wanted to cover. Look for a video of Yossi in tomorrows post. Well be talking about something you and I are very familiar with called the box. Very cool stuff! And if you have seen Yossi speak or have any of his material, I’d like to hear the effects of his story on your thoughts.

To learn more about Yossi Ghinsberg and his exotic adventure of survival in the Amazon, pick up your copy of his book by clicking on the image to the right!