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My Morning Routine
I rise at 5 am. My alarm goes off 15 minutes prior, and as I snooze, I lie in bed reciting affirmations to myself, through the open door of my subconscious mind. "I love my life." "I believe something wonderful will happen to me today." "I am so grateful for my life." "I breathe in joy and gratitude." My gratitudes roll around in my mind like a candy that I savor. The second alarm invites me to go into the [...]
Chris Brogan’s Important Framework
I don’t like to reinvent the wheel. I prefer to find out what successful people are doing, and model how they are doing it. Chris Brogan wrote an excellent blog post some time ago about how he prioritized his day. The man is a content output machine; he is one of the indisputable masters of social media. (He’s got his haters, too, which means his points of view take a stand. I like that.) When I got his email newsletter [...]
A Very Costa Rican Day.
Today we received our Cedulas in the mail, the ID cards that designate us as Costa Rican permanent residents. Today the Costa Rican bureaucracy, rightly earning its legendary reputation, spent an hour and a half stonewalling me over the legibility of an unnecessary stamp on a translation of my marriage certificate. Today I spent an hour lounging by the pool, doing yoga in the sunshine, listening to the toucans over the sound of the river thats twenty yards away. It's [...]
Costa Rican Permanent Residents.
We went to San Jose last week to finalize the paperwork for our Residency status. In 2011, we came to Costa Rica while Johanna was five months pregnant. Because we were having a baby in Costa Rica, all first-level relatives (parents and siblings) of a Costa Rican citizen are eligible to apply for Permanent Residency. We needed a lot of paperwork. We never would have been able to manage the paperwork maze without the right lawyers for residency in Costa [...]
Increase Email Newsletter Subscribers with a Free PDF
You're setup with an email newsletter, but nobody is subscribing. Dangle the carrot, or I'll give you the stick. People are already dealing with information overload in their email inboxes. In order to overcome someone's reluctance to add to their inbox problem, you have to solve a different problem for them. Offer to solve a problem, for free, in exchange for subscribing to your newsletter. The best incentive you can offer is a free PDF download. People Love Free PDFs [...]
“Daddy, what’s a gun?”
My 6-year-old girl really didn't know. While discussing the differences between policemen and firefighters, I used a word Indilea had never heard before. She has acquired the excellent habit of asking for the meaning of any word she doesn't understand. "What's a gun?" she asked. "You know," I said as I mimed a gun. "Kapow." "I don't get it," she said. Of course she doesn't get it. She doesn't watch anything more violent than Thomas the Train. While she might [...]