A few weeks ago I hinted that we were working on something that would enable us to meet our financial requirements in only 4 hours a week (or zero hours a week, depending on whose book you were reading!)   This is still part of our “Lifestyle Design” experiment as we work through Tim Ferriss’ book The 4-Hour Workweek.

Today I reveal our plan!  The kids and I have been working like crazy behind the scenes to create and launch a social media management business called “Hot Spot Promotion“.  We were able to successfully launch it on Friday, July 2, at 5:42 pm.  Woohoo!

Now we’re working hard behind the scenes applying the social media techniques we’ve studied and tested to this business as we build it to something that will enable us to have a lifestyle that portrays freedom instead of bondage.  We’re pretty excited.

Of course, at the beginning, things are always difficult as we look for clients, and establish our reputation.  If you know anyone who has a small business in Calgary that might need a bit of a boost, we’s so appreciate it if you’d send them our way.  In the meantime, watch as we become a force to reckon with in the Calgary small business marketing arena!

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Who is Darlene Hull? Click here: www.darlenehull.com to find out!

So last Friday I told you about “learning to fly”.  I completed my exercises for 4HWW right after writing that blog.  I created a questionnaire based on the questions at the end of Chapter 4 and got all my answers on paper.  I then worked out the costs and got set up with clear goals for the next 6 months and some “rougher” goals for the following 6 months.

But then it was the question of what do I do to create that income?  Isn’t that always the BIG question?  Some of it will be covered by Gymboree once Tom is back to his normal salary.  However, not all of it.

So in poking around in my beloved iTunes store I found the free app “Zero Hour Workweek“.  VERY cool e-book.  He thinks he disagrees with Tim Ferriss, but in fact, he’s on exactly the same path with exactly the same goals.  He has some great tools for figuring out what it is you’re here to do.

First I read the e-book cover to cover.  Then I checked out his website and worked through his “beginner’s guide” articles which were a hugely encouraging help to re-structuring my mindset.  Very cool stuff there.  I highly recommend it.

So I have some pretty cool ideas now, and am excited to get working on them.  What are they, you ask?  Ahhhh – you’ll have to wait and see.

Check back next Friday for the continuing saga!

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Who is Darlene Hull? Click here: www.darlenehull.com to find out!

For most of my life, the question “What are you going to do when you grow up?” has hounded me, nightmarishly.  Every week it was a different answer. My earliest recollection of what I wanted to be was a nun (I liked the “long dresses”).  Then I wanted to be a vet,  then a surgeon.  I wanted to be a teacher, a flight attendant, a tour guide, a translator, a performance coach, a singer, a teacher of early childhood education, a psychologist, a counselor, a life coach …

By the time I was 25 I’d worked 17 jobs.  Some of them could have been career choices, except that they bored me silly once I got them figured out.

After a longer stint (5 years!) as a music director for Youth for Christ Germany I had the fortune of marrying a man who earned a salary that enabled me to stay home.   I became a homeschooling mom (a great choice for someone with my attention span – always something new to focus on) and I went through cycles of being “crafty”, a cook (believe it or not!) a nature buff, a historian, and a lover of literature.

Now that my kids are older and more independent in their schooling, I’ve turned to entrepreneurialism, Internet discoveries (gotta love Google!) and health and fitness.  I realized when I hit the age of about 38 that I was not cut out for a career-type job and was happy as an entrepreneur, but that didn’t quite cover “who I was” and “what I did”.

Let me explain:

Currently (and concurrently) I am designing a walking program that goes from couch potato to marathon walker in 18 months, a nutrition/weight loss program, and a financial rehabilitation program.  I am training for my next marathon by walking 1-3 hours a day,  I am designing 3 websites for a house church group, taking a university course towards a ministry degree, studying to become a biblical health coach, and working towards a leadership certificate in 2 other ministry programs and am researching how to become a certified walking coach.  I  am also applying for a part time job to cover the costs of all these projects.  And, of course, there’s the standard homemaking responsibilities (did I mention we were renovating?) and keeping my kids on track in home school (gr. 11).  Oh yeah – and church, but I’m not really doing much volunteering there right at the moment.

This is a pretty normal situation for me, so when someone asks “what do you do?” I don’t really have an answer – at least, I didn’t.

Thanks to my Virtual Assistant  buddy Niki Jackson (who helps keep me sane and on track with all things website – bless her) I discovered the book Refuse to Choose!: Use All of Your Interests, Passions, and Hobbies to Create the Life and Career of Your Dreams after reading Niki’s review of the book on her blog.

Well, friends, I have found myself. I am a “Plate Spinning Scanner“. Cooooool. Now I know how to organize myself using GREAT tools, (Scanner day-book;  the LTTL method of project management: Learn, Try, Teach, Leave; A “school teacher” daily plan; a portable idea deck; and 20-30 three-ring binders) and move forward in my life by allowing myself to be who I am, and learning how to “fit in” to a more linear society.

This has been such a fun journey.  The book itself is creativity on steroids, and I have so loved being validated as the person I am, instead of constantly trying to fit everyone else’s view of what is “right”.

So while this doesn’t have much to do with walking (except that it’s up there in the list of things I do), it does have a lot to do with living a healthy life.  I am designed to be this way, and the more I fight it, the more stressed I become.  The more stressed I become, the sicker I get.

So let me encourage you to be yourself.  Rejoice in who you are,  live  life to the fullest, and honour the Creator by faithfully exercising all your gifts – even if people think you’re flighty, weird, scattered, irresponsible, lazy or immature. The truth is a linear society will never understand a scanner – and that’s OK.

Live with integrity, true to who you are. It’s a great feeling!

Darlene