What if I told you the lunatic on the other end of that email could actually be right.  What if I told you that you could actually make money 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, and with almost no effort.  You would probably call me crazy too!

At first this idea sounds impossible, a bold faced lie more likely, however in practice it’s actually quite common.  I want you to close your eyes for a minute and imagine that you have all of the money you could ever need and you no longer are required to get up and go to work every morning.

What would you do?

Would you get up and go fly fishing? Maybe take your bike out and go for a long ride?  Perhaps you would go to the museum and study the contemporary sculpture exhibit and ask yourself over and over, How can they honestly pass this as art? Maybe you’d gather your friends in front of the TV:  beercan, chipbag, and remote.

Imagine if you could get paid to do whatever it is you do in your free time when there are no other responsibilities. Imagine you could get paid to simply live your life.

Think about your favorite celebrity…

1. Shaun White is an incredible snowboarder and gets paid to travel the world in search of the best spots to ride
2. Martha Stewart has managed to turn her love for cooking, entertaining, and decorating into a multi-million dollar enterprise
3. Donald Trump was fascinated with real estate as a young man and has literally built an empire
4. Oprah thrives on enriching peoples lives through sharing touching stories and information
5. Paris Hilton is famous for being…. well, famous.

…they all have one thing in common:

Their life is their business.

We may not all be superstars at something, like Shaun White there are boundless opportunities in our everyday lives to take advantage of.

I recently returned from a trip to Costa Rica which was part vacation, part volunteer work.  I entered the country with an excitement to explore a new culture and a new language; I left the country primed with two potential business startups and a new business partner.

Last week while picking up some milk and eggs at our local food market I ran into the owner we started chatting about his business.  He brought up the idea of a new website, I brought up the idea of re-useable shopping bags, I left with a gallon of mik, a handshake and a promise to deliver both the reusable bags and the website.

So while that email spammer is probably still peddling empty promises of easy money, making  your life your business could be your real cash cow.  Unique opportunities are presented to us every single day.  To begin, all you need to do is open your eyes to the possibilities. Make your business your life.

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1. Make meaning. The people who wake up in the morning wanting to make meaning usually succeed. The people who want to make money usually fail. Those who perpetuate good things, cause good things, or end bad things – those are the innovators.
2. Make a mantra. “Most organizations make mission statements and most mission statements suck.” A mantra is no more than two or three words. For example, Wendy’s should be “healthy fast food;” Nike stands for “authentic athletic performance;” eBay represents “democratization of commerce;” and Target could be “democratize design.”
3. Jump to the next curve. Don’t be satisfied battling it out on the same curve. Macintosh created a whole new curve, not a slightly better DOS computer. The telephone was not a slightly better telegraph, it was a whole new curve. Most organizations define their business on the curve they’re on. If you truly want to be innovative, it’s not about doing things 10 percent better – jump the curve to do something 10 times better!
4. Roll the DICEE. All innovations share the following elements.
   Depth: Create great products and services that are revolutionary (i.e., Reef makes a fanning sandal to protect feet and has a metal clip to open a beer bottle).
   Intelligent: Someone has anticipated what’s necessary (i.e., Panasonic developed a flashlight that takes three sizes of batteries so you’re sure to have one on hand).
   Complete: Not just the leather and steel and glass of the car – it’s the totality of the experience, it’s the Lexus experience.
   Elegance: The beauty of the industrial design.
   Emotive: Generate strong emotions – people love what you do or hate what you do, but they are certainly not indifferent. The worst case is that people don’t care about what you do.
5. Don’t worry, be crappy If you wait for perfection, you’ll never be ready.
6. Polarize people (emotiveness). Many organizations try to be all things to all people, which inevitably produces mediocrity. Don’t try to anger people, but do not hesitate to alienate a group.
7. Let 100 flowers blossom For example, Apple’s original goal wasn’t to spark a new desktop publishing industry, but it did encourage many software companies to write programs for the Mac. Apple Computer would have died if the Aldus Corporation hadn’t developed PageMaker for the Mac in 1985 – thus expanding the Mac beyond a simple word processor or spreadsheet tool.
8. Churn, baby, churn Take version 1 of your product, and make it 1.1 and 1.2 and 1.3. To be an innovator, you need to be in denial. Ignore the bozos who keep telling you it cannot be done. Then listen to customers to see how to fix your product.
9. Niche thyself. You want high uniqueness and high value. If you’re a great value but not unique, then you always have to compete on price (i.e., Dell Computer). If you’re only unique without value, you’re just a clown – you own a market that doesn’t exist. If your product/service is neither unique nor valuable, fahgeddaboutit! You want to produce something that is unique and of great value to the customer, like the Smart car, which can park perpendicular to the curb, among other things.
10. Follow the 10-20-30 rule. Create a maximum of 10 slides in a PowerPoint presentation; deliver it in 20 minutes; the optimal size font is 30 points.
11. Don’t let the bozos grind you down. Rich and famous parses to “lucky” not necessarily smart. “If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at who he gives it to.” So watch for Bozosity. Take a shot of Bozosity to inoculate yourself against it

His message also included “The top 10 things he wishes teachers would teach students.” It struck a chord with me and I think applies to anyone interested in business as well.

What our schools do should prepare people for living. Part of living is working. But generally speaking, we’re preparing people for life, not work.

1. Teach students how to figure out anything by themselves.
2. How to explain anything in 30 seconds.
3. How to do a one-page report.
4. 10-20-30 rule of PowerPoint (see above).
5. Optimal length of an e-mail is five sentences, without an attachment.
6. How to survive a meeting (basically you get what you want out of the meeting and then you park your brain).
7. How to run a meeting (start on time, end on time, involve as few people as possible).
8. How to work as a group (the solo brilliant person doesn’t work in business).
9. How to negotiate win-wins.
10. Learning is a process not an event. It’s a lifelong process that is not limited to school.

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