Blogger Steve Pavlina wrote an article recently stating that “everyone is essentially self-employed and that even if you’re an employee.”

I’ve long been a fan of this method of thinking and it has been a huge help in my business life. Ultimately, it involves taking responsibility for your work and career and making conscious choices in how you ‘operate your business.’

My wife and I have taken the baby and traveled to Michigan to spend the 4th of July holiday week with my family. A number of years ago, my parents bought a house in a little community on the Lake Michigan coast and for the past 12 or 13 years, we gather there in the middle of summer.

Do you want to start your own business publishing information products? There is a mountain of information products out there promising to show you how to start your business. The dirty little secret is - most of these products are either incomplete or just plain garbage.

So, where do you turn for help? Well, I’ve spent the past year and a half exploring this market and building my business (this blog is one component that actually makes me a little money!) I discovered a person named Fred Gleeck, known as ‘The Product Guru’ and recently attended his One-Day Info Product Seminar.

I had my most profitable online business month yet last month and decided to roll some of that back into my business by seeking out a little offline education.

Here in New York City almost every street corner has a few news boxes giving away course catalogs or free local papers. One of the course catalogs that is very popular is the Learning Annex catalog. This one is usually filled with everything from from the weird and wild like ‘How To Strip for Your Partner’ and ‘Making a Fortune In Real Estate’ to very practical computer classes and soap making classes. It’s an adult education free-for-all.

‘5 Bucks A Day’, by Dennis Becker - It is better than ‘The Secret’, it’s the answer to your frustrations with your online marketing efforts.

Picture two people standing behind a row of expensive cars. They can have any one they choose if only they can push it 200 yards.

The first person picks a nice black Lexus and starts pushing. The car barely moves, but she just keeps at it.

Today I decided to fire up my synchronicity engine and see what it would do for my online business efforts. I made a post on Russell Brunson’s Conquer Your Niche Forum in the Joint Ventures and Special Offers section. The gist of the message was this - I’ve got lots of skills and need to work with other people to create products and businesses using these skills.

I was watching a video today called “Off the Grid”, by Warren Miller Films and heard a great quotation in the narration. I don’t know who was speaking and if they were quoting someone else, but it goes like this:

“The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity!”

Couldn’t have said it better myself. Warren Miller Films makes specialty movies about skiing. If you want to know more about what they do visit: www.WarrenMiller.com.

Craftsmanship and professionalism, at first glance, seem to go together. Being a professional means doing your job better than anyone else does it, right? Professional programmers spend as much time as they need making their programs perfect, and professional actors dedicate themselves 100 percent to portraying their character - or do they? I had a long talk with Mrs. Go-To Guy about this topic recently and came away with a different view of the relationship between craftsmanship and professionalism.

How do you lead a group of people to make decisions?

This thought jumped into my head as I rode the subway home this evening. I came up with two answers that point to two very different results.

I work with a theater company that is part of the church I attend. There is a finite amount of space in the church that must be shared between the theater, a preschool, Sunday and mid-week services, and every other church activity (like weddings, choir rehearsals, etc.) that arises. As the church’s activities grow, it becomes more challenging to schedule use of the building.

Personal development writer, Steve Pavlina, wrote an article about his experiences with giving up television. When I read it today it reminded me of my own experience of giving up television and some other ‘media vacations.’

I gave up television for far less noble reasons than Steve. I gave it up because I’m cheap!