The Four Hour Work Week Project - Allison Reynolds

Ditching Corporate Life For Passive Income

AudioBoo Test

Just checking to see what AudioBoo looks like embedded in a blog post because I am TOTALLY enamoured with it. The voice quality is great and the ability to link geo info and a picture with the audio means I can do my Vox Pops and upload to blog all from my iPhone….soooooo very cool!

Listen!

OK after looking it seems it only embeds the player…bummer. Still here is the image

map can’t be captured…double bummer

29 May 2009 at 15:15 - Comments

Just For Me

Between Christmas 2008 and New Year’s day 2009 my partner and I stayed in our bush house. During that time the weather was hot and the summer evening storms were magnificent. The one in this video lasted for over 45 minutes far to our north. I recorded 30 minues of it onto my Flip MinoHD just to see whether anything useful would come of it.

When I played it back I knew I wanted to put some of the storm to music, and finally I have.

This is a random 7 minute excerpt from the storm. I could have tried to do something fancy with having the lightning synch with the music, but I like it how it is…dramatic, awe inspiring, and memory invoking.

Imagine yourself sitting outside with the sound of night insects, it’s hot but not too hot. There is no sound from the far off storm, just the flashes that sometimes had touches of colour. The storm clouds go thousands of feet into the sky, and as far as you look from north-west to north-east the sky is flashing.

Enjoy.

18 May 2009 at 00:28 - Comments

Too Much Information

As I wastch the growing hysteria (which may be justified) about the Swine Flu I have been pondering about how while the internet has been a boon for information junkies like myself, it has introduced new levels of anxiety for others.

The average internet user is not some boffin locked away in their ivory tower, but the average Joe(sephine). These people are as children, with no filter mechinism between themselves and the information being provided. When big media was King, that was mostly managed under by judicious(?) release of “news” under the watchful eye of governmental controls. Not so the internet.

Before anyone freaks out and thinks I am advocating censorship, I will state categorically that is NOT what I am saying. I am musing on how those that swallow everything the internet says and treats it as gospel truth. At the moment these people think the sky is falling, because a million uninformed people say it is. Education is the key (and always is), though for this generation of internet users…it’s probably too late. Time to start teaching mental self protection in schools. “Grain of Salt” thinking.

27 April 2009 at 11:20 - Comments

Speaking of Family

It’s coming up to my Dad’s birthday. I haven’t seen him in a while, well since last Christmas. That is pretty much how I roll and the rest of the family knows that. Anyway I sent him an email asking if he wanted to come up to my place for a meal for his birthday. He declined saying that he was over the whole family thing, and while he was still avaiable to help out if there was anything he could do, he wasn’t going to be doing anything more than that.

You know what. I am cool with that. Told him too.

See I am happy to let him keep what is his.

I know when others in the family have heard the same thing from my dad they have been shocked and saddened. I guess they thought they owned part of him, or that he owed them some of himself. I don’t feel that. I have no expectations of how he should be as a grandfather to my kids either.  I never knew my grandparents and it never hurt me none.

When we came to Australia from England I was just a toddler. We had no family close by in Australia, and my mother and father were fiercely independent. Living with no safety net seems natural and normal to me, to others that would be incredibly scary.

I remember my mother saying to me once “Allison, you always seem to take these big risks in your life and they work out”. To me they never seemed like risk, they were just “doing”

Draft that i couldn’t decide whether to post or not.

4 April 2009 at 16:40 - Comments

Twitter Burger

twitterbuger

30 March 2009 at 19:37 - Comments

Torn

I was just reading this interesting musing article on why people lose originality the more popular they get (there are so few “out there” people that are well followed) when it occurred to me that what I was doing - reading the article - was adding nothing at all to my business.

I am torn. I don’t want to waste time, but nor do I want to intellectually stagnate. The balance seems a little askew at the moment, I feel I should be sacrificing every spare second to completing those open projects…instant gratification has a hold of me and I need to shake it off. Pronto!

18 March 2009 at 02:58 - Comments

All In The Family

Tonight my son and I signed a contract between ourselves. The contract states that I will pay him $125 (AUD) a week for the next six weeks. In that time he will complete Ed Dale’s Thirty Day Challenge, following it to the letter and perform some transcript tasks I have. At the end of the six weeks he will hand over any niche sites he has built OR he will keep them and pay me back the money I have paid him.

There are certain caveats of course. If he does not complete the assigned tasks for that week he won’t get paid.

The goal here is to push him through the pain barrier of sitting down to complete the 30DC, while at the same time introducing him to the possibilities of earning money online.

I’ll keep you posted.

Matto

Matto

9 March 2009 at 22:08 - Comments
Gord at 16:37 on 11 March 2009
This should prove to be quite interesting. You did not mention his age but I am sure that with your help ...
Lisa Hartwell at 01:09 on 2 April 2009
How is this going? Has he stuck to it? Would love an update :)

Passion

I just read the following words*

All a product is, all a company is, is an an “Idea Amplifier”. Products don’t excite us. Human potential excites us.

That, ladies and gentlemen, encapsulates my passion EXACTLY.  It is so close to my heart that I retracted my initial thought of tweeting those words on Twitter, and instead hugged them close to me, like a kid does with something they love. I keep reading the words and letting myself spin around them. Somebody understands! Somebody feels the same way!

I live to see people succeed. Just the thought of helping someone find their one true love/calling/business makes my pulse race. I feel the tingle of adrenalin in the tips of my fingers. Human Potential Excites Me! It drives me!

You can see why the SWBN is my parade ground. How I can envisage my raising an army of confident women who will step out into the world bringing our type of business to an evironment that is RIPE for how we do things.

*from Gaping Void

4 February 2009 at 20:46 - Comments
Ken at 09:50 on 8 March 2009
This is a great looking theme! Did you get i off the shelf or custom make it? Thanks, Ken (WP newbie)
Allison at 22:10 on 9 March 2009
Hi Ken This is a freebie you can grab over at SmashingMagazine.com

Tests

Just call me Ol’ Iron Jaw Reynolds. Yep, I have a lesson or two to learn apparently. One of them has GOT to be perseverance. I am as sure of that as I am sure the sun will rise tomorrow.

Firstly this blog did not survive the 2.7 upgrade. Sure the front end looked OK, well apart from the lack of updates. But the backend, well the backend was completely toast.  It took a full rebuild AND code hacking to get it going. Wasting precious precious time that I could have been spending on

…the SWBN launch has been delayed by India of all places. No we have not outsourced ourselves or anything like that, a complication has arisen with my day job and a project that looked to be done and dusted by now is limping along. I feel like I am dragging an iron by the plug through the Sahara desert. Pointless? Yep sure feels like it when you KNOW you can be spending that time on

…making money. Ed Dale has come up with a program to follow on from the Thirty Day Challenge. I have to be honest here and say this is the bit that SHOULD be in the 30DC from the beginning, but what would you chuck out to fit it in?

All online business people need to know how to create their own products if they want to avoid depending on others for their income.

We have recently seen what happens when you are relying on an employer or another business and there is no need for it! Self sufficiency will be the catch-cry of the next decade. Whether it is in food growing, electricity production or in business, being able to do it yourself will be an essential skill.

Ed’s course is really sneaky in how it is set up. You only get to see the information starting from the month you sign up. If you want the previous month’s information you need to buy it separately at a premium price. Luckily it has been going less than a month so you won’t miss out on seeing anything if you sign up before the end of January.

Sign up now (and ignore the sales letter…god it is awful!)

11 January 2009 at 00:50 - Comments
John Lacey at 01:11 on 11 January 2009
Well I'm sorry to hear you had such a 2.7 ordeal.

Immediate Edge - New Improved Review

Name: The Immediate Edge

Media: Membership Site

Cost: US$97 p/m

There have been so many changes over at the Immediate Edge that the review I wrote some time ago is very much out-of-date.

For those looking for information about what the Immediate Edge is, let’s start with the basics.

The Immediate Edge is a continuity learning program. Month on month new information in the form of lengthy newsletters, project updates, and educational videos, are made available to the membership.

The information is still aimed at the intermediate-to-advanced internet business owner. While there has been an influx of beginner types after the 30 Day Challenge seeing if the IE is for them, the information is still aimed squarely at those that are passionate and driven about making a living online.

Bonus modules have been added recently to the Immediate Edge such as the online version of Ed Dale’s Buying and Selling of Website Course - Dominiche,  access to the new 30DC plus learning materials and the mysterious (but exciting!) $10k project.These modules have added extra value to membership, and help cover the times when there are gaps in new content.

The IE has cleaned up its user interface to be more user friendly in finding things which was the biggest bug-bear new members had when coming into the program.

The addition of “project manager” Jon, to the already tireless work that Asbjorn does in the back office, should help keep the head rascal Dan Raine under some form of control.

While there is more structure in the current layout, learning is not in a linear form. This has been part of the philosophy of the IE from day one, learning is up to YOU the student.  Self motivated and passionate students please apply.

There is one small issue with the IE that you as a member will need to accept, and that is Dan Raine’s enthusiasm in announcing things that aren’t quite ready for publishing. Often there will be an announcement of something exciting that will be here next Tuesday and then a short-to-long gap before it actually eventuates. This is one of Dan Raine’s charming quirks, and one I am sure his business partners would love to remedy with gaffer tape and a good flogging with a paddle. I don’t think he is going to change though….

I do recommend the IE. It is not your usual learning program, it stretches everyone that becomes a member as well as providing great cutting edge content.

The Immediate Edge

13 December 2008 at 20:36 - Comments
Oliver at 02:29 on 14 December 2008
Thanks for the review, Allison! So, it's a cross between an Internet Marketing university and access to results from the Research&Development ...
Corinne at 07:33 on 14 December 2008
A very good description of the IE Allison. The IE is not for newbies, but it is not limited to ...