At the end of July, my high school class had a milestone reunion. I had considered attending, but changed my mind when my move popped up.

Afterwards I received a mailing which listed the names and addresses of my former classmates. What struck me immediately was how many of the people were living in the same place they’d been residing at the last reunion—and the ones before that.

While staying put in one place is something I never wanted to do, I admit that I felt a bit envious, but I blame that on being in the midst of the epic task of organizing a physical move.

Even as a kid, I couldn’t imagine settling for a world no bigger than the county where I grew up. I knew there was a big wide world where people talked, lived and looked differently and I wanted to explore.

For many years, I only knew about faraway places through reading about them. It wasn’t until I discovered self-employment that I figured out a way to see things up close and personal for myself.

When I began traveling regularly and meeting other would-be entrepreneurs, I realized  that the same curiosity that urges us to see the world is very much like the curiosity that urges us to start a business.

In fact the very unpredictability of self-employment holds special charms for the joyfully jobless. Where will I go today? What next project fascinates me? Where will I meet kindred spirits?

Unanswered questions, not routine, colors our days.

None of these things are likely to show up for us, however, unless we engage. Instigate. Explore. Get out and about.

Years ago, I read an article in Writers Digest which warned writers about the danger of hiding away in our offices. In order to be a good writer, the author suggested, we must get out and observe. Listen to other people’s stories, be inspired by a change of scenery.

Yesterday, I put the padlock on the POD sitting in my driveway holding all my household goods, got in the car and drove to my new hometown in southern California. As I set out, I decided to spend the five hour drive focusing on gratitude.

As I headed west, something else happened that I hadn’t anticipated. Suddenly, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, what I wanted my next year to include. Museums and mobility are emerging themes.

Even bigger is a crusade I intend to launch. When the idea hit, it was so obvious that I couldn’t believe I hadn’t taken it up sooner. You’ll be hearing more about that soon. In fact, there will be an official announcement at the Joyfully Jobless Jamboree.

“The world is like a book,” said St. Augustine all those years ago, “and he who stays home reads only one page.”

Still true.

The other day my sister Becky sent me an article from her Santa Barbara paper about a creative young entrepreneur named Michael Lewis. His business, Suite Arrivals is an interesting idea, but his entrepreneurial mindset is what got my attention.
One of the things he’s done since setting up shop in his adopted hometown is to create a MeetUp group to connect other self-bossers. “When I started StartUpSB, I knew I wanted to cultivate an entrepreneurial community based on camaraderie rather than business card swaps at networking events,” said Lewis, saying that he’d attended a few such events when he first [...] Continue Reading…

Although the Labor Day holiday has evolved into a weekend that commemorates the end of summer, it began with a very different intention. In an attempt to appease unhappy workers, President Grover Cleveland proposed a holiday to honor their accomplishments. It was quickly and unanimously approved by Congress.

At about the same time, the United States began to evolve from a rabidly entrepreneurial culture to an employee culture. By the time you and I arrived on the planet the conventional wisdom about the importance of finding and keeping a good job was firmly in place.

Having a national holiday to shine [...] Continue Reading…

Years ago when I first learned about goal setting, one of the first written goals I set for myself was to never have two years that were exactly the same. I suspect that goal was inspired by my realization that my teaching job seemed to produce years that were nearly a carbon copy (you do remember carbon copies, don’t you?) of one another.
That goal popped into my mind again a couple of weeks ago when I sat down to shred the papers and receipts from 2002. As I discovered, it was a year quite unlike 2010, which has also [...] Continue Reading…

My definition of job security is having a strong, healthy entrepreneurial spirit. That can only occur if that spirit is fed regularly with activities and thoughts that are nurturing. Here are some of my favorite ways to do just that.
Give yourself a change of scenery. It may be efficient for factories to standardize their production lines, but our creative selves thrive on variety.
Take a different route when running errands, take a sabbatical, take a vacation, take your laptop to the park. You can be productive without being routine.

Tithe your time. Don’t just send a check to support things you [...] Continue Reading…

On May 24, 2002, I happened to see a Breaking News story on CNN about an apartment building in Los Angeles that had suffered an explosion. The immediate cause was unknown, but when they reported the address, I panicked.
This was the building where my daughter Jennie, her partner Hector and their pug Emmit lived. I called Jennie’s phones, but got no answer on either.
The next forty-five minutes were the longest of my life. Finally the call came saying they were fine.
They had stepped out to run an errand just before the explosion occurred.  Even though they didn’t normally take Emmit [...] Continue Reading…

When I was packing books for my upcoming move a tiny volume caught my eye. Although it’s not readily available in the US, the title that got my attention was Simon Woodroffe’s The Book of Yo!

Even though I’m not a sushi eater, I knew about Yo! Sushi, the business started in London in 1997 by Woodroffe and billed as the “World’s Largest Conveyor Belt Sushi Bar.” Today Yo! Sushi is an international brand with establishments in sixty countries.

The brand has expanded into other endeavors including Yotel, Yo! Zone, Yo! Home and RadiYo. According to their Website, YO! Co is [...] Continue Reading…

It’s easy to imagine people looking at the prolific William Morris and saying, “I wonder how he gets so much done.” During his lifetime, he produced a dazzling body of work that included writing, social activism, publishing and all those intricate textile and wallpapers.
I’ve always suspected that the secret of his enormous output stemmed from the weekends he organized at his home, Red House, where he invited his artistic friends to come and spend the weekend “making things.” Rosetti, Burne-Jones and the others who came to make up the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood were participants in these Art Weekends.
In gathering all [...] Continue Reading…

When I saw the Twitter post from someone saying they were going to claim intentional serendipity, I smiled. See, I’ve had a long love affair with the concept of serendipity.
Like most people, I always thought serendipity meant accidental discoveries. Then I read Marcus Bach’s The World of Serendipity and discovered it is far more exciting than that.
According to Bach, the idea originated in an old Persian fairy tale which was retold in 1754 by Horace Walpole. The tale had to do with the Princes of Serendip.
While traveling through the world, these three young noblemen rarely found the treasures they were [...] Continue Reading…

Nearly all of us who arrived on this planet after World War II grew up in the Culture of the Single Lifetime Career. From early on, we were encouraged to pick a path and follow it.
Once we had made the choice, we discovered that getting off that path was not only difficult—it incurred scorn and criticism from others. Besides the enormous discontent that such thinking has produced, it’s also crippled our adventurous spirits.
R. Buckminster Fuller was one of the greatest thinkers of the past century and someone who refused to give in to such singular notions. In his fascinating [...] Continue Reading…