THE DREAM IN ACTION

Today marks 2 years of blogging. I started out on ActionsTalk.com, then I was on RyanAGraves.com, now I’m on the URL THE DREAM IN ACTION.com. I thoroughly enjoy the process and have learned a lot in the process. This site gets about 3,000 unique readers a month which, in my eyes, with all the changes to the site, is no small accomplishment. I hope that over the next year we can hit 10k per month. Here’s why…

I write about my dreams, and how to make yours a reality. Why, and where do I get off trying to teach other people how to do it? My hope is that as I answer these questions you’ll see my answers as reasons to subscribe to the RSS or come back to the site on a regular basis. I hope that the experiences I have, that turn into blog posts, help you get closer to your dreams… through action of course.

This Is Not A 4 Hour Work Week

First, it needs to be said that this isn’t a get rich quick blog. It’s not a ‘how to blog for a living’ site or a ‘use the internet to scam people and make a quick buck’ site. I’m not going to try and teach you how to live a 4 hour work week, others do that better than I, so why rebuild the wheel. This site is the all about making your dreams realities on a daily basis. It’s about how to make your life better one step at a time so that you not only achieve your goals in life, but that you enjoy the process.

Full Time Job

I’m an entrepreneur. By that I mean I have revenue streams outside of my day job, but let me be clear, I do have a day job. I do not work on my startup full time and I’ve not reached the point that my entrepreneurial ventures are large enough to sustain my life (YET). However, I definitely believe you can live with an entrepreneurial spirit without being a CEO or a founder of a startup. I’ve written about being a corporate entrepreneur and I know from first hand experience that now, when our economy is at one of it’s shakiest moments, is when large corporation need entrepreneurial innovation the most. Put the dream in action and enjoy what you do by changing your workplace and your life for the better.

After Hours

Over the next year I will draw thoughts and solutions from a few different ventures. I’ll be heavily involved in growing NVRnude.com. I unfortunately can’t go into to much detail about what we’re going to deliver with NVRnude.com but what I can say is that the social web and the transactional web are going to come face to face, and we’re going to lead that charge. You can follow more on the NVRnude Blog.

As you know SocialDreamium LLC has been formally shut down and I will no longer be blogging there. However, I will be drawing upon many lessons learned from that experience. I really like the idea of embracing your failures as energy and lessons. We’ll learn from that together.

As far as The Renliv Group and Actions Talk go, they will continue. The Renliv Group is the funnel that I’ve used for any consulting/advisory work that I’ve done over the last 6-9 months and that will stay available but slow down significantly. If you’re a startup founder and would like to chat or are interested in talking more I’m always up for it, just shoot me an email.

Travel

I’m just coming of a very business travel season. After being in Stockholm, Sweden then Boulder Junction, WI then San Diego I was ready to settle down for a bit, make sure my bills were paid and get back to work. Aside from another trip out to San Diego in August, I’ll be head down on projects until September when myself and about 15 buddies are headed to Boulder, CO for a camping trip/ my bachelor party. Should be a great time to get friends from college and friends from home all together. Then, for my honeymoon in November, Molly and I are headed to Costa Rica for 2 weeks. Now that I’m really looking forward to!

Try and Try Again

If you’ve never heard of Morten Lund you should take some time to learn about him. He’s a European entrepreneur who’s attitude towards the process of starting a business, making and losing a lot of money, and what’s important in life is a great one to follow. He’s uneducated, sometimes a bit distasteful, and more passionate that anyone else I’ve seen. It’s refreshing.

If you have a bit, watch this video (13 minutes), and get an idea for who he is.

Morten’s attitude towards trying and trying again is exactly what I want to bring to my career and in the shorter term, this blog. I’ve tried a few different things to grow this blog and I’ll continue to try whatever I think will work. I changed the blog URL to THE DREAM IN ACTION.com because I thought that the idea of enjoying life day by day and bringing dreams to fruition is an idea that ANYONE can support and continue to learn about. I still share tidbits on RyanGraves.org/anized by the way.

I appreciate your support in this iterative process of growing a community and a blog that adds value to your web surfing.

Why I’m encouraged.

There are a few things why I’m very encouraged to take on another year of blogging and life.

The Economy - We all know it sucks but I really think that this will take some of the competition out of the startup market because right now people just want a pay check. This means that the people who aren’t willing to spend 6pm-1am on their startup will stop doing “entrepreneurship”…maybe they should have been there in the first place? This is a crazy environment where the strong will suffer and the weak will parish but the hard working will always see good times again.

The Gen-Y Attitude – The entitlement thing isn’t what I’m talking about, although I’m sure that does exist, whatever. What I’m talking about is the get things done, always learn the new tool, gotta get ahead, attitude. Not all my friends feel the pressure that I feel to “do something big” but many of them do and I think that’s awesome.

Why are you excited? What do you think of this blog this year? How can I provide more value?