May 2010

Does College Matter After You Graduate?

May 27, 2010 · 90 comments

Up until this point in our lives, many of us have followed a very similar path toward where we are today – we work our way through school and work hard along the way – we do everything we can to graduate high school with an impressive GPA and plenty of extracurriculars. Why? To get into a great college, of course.

Then what? We keep up the hard work, burn the midnight oil, memorize our cheat sheets, and study our assess off, all while trying to balance our social life, party on the weekends, meet our soulmate, and survive on Ramen…and for what? To graduate and end up with the job of our dreams.

It’s the cycle that has been engraned in American Culture – it’s part of that old-school pursuit of the “American Dream” (that is rapidly changing – or in my opinion – no longer exists). My question is, after putting in so much hard work and effort – does it really mean anything? Once you’re in the “real world” does anyone really care what you did back in school? I’m not so sure.

Is college important after you graduate? Continue reading and share your thoughts…

Minimalism versus being a MNMLST

May 26, 2010 · 17 comments

The following is a guest post by Bryan Cromlish. Bryan is currently the Online Community Manager with Engine Communications. He can be pretty active on Twitter @bcromlish. I really appreciate Bryan’s willingness to offer a different perspective on something I wrote about a few weeks ago – really adds a lot of depth to the conversation. Enjoy, and share some of your own thoughts in the comments below.

Ever since Matt wrote a post about Minimalism recently, I’ve had a hard time getting my head around the subject. I have heard about it before and have actually heard about most of the minimalists mentioned, but I wondered, is minimalism actually everywhere or something us ‘Lifestyle Design-Types’ are honing in on?

Matt wrote that the minimalist trend isn’t rising, it’s here, it’s everywhere around us. We’re living in a society that ultimately wants less. We’re condensing our wants to meet our needs – and in a world in which we are absolutely inundated and bombarded with information – we value simple and effective over flash and glamour.

Considering I see life primarily through a marketing lens, I wasn’t sure if I was hit in the face with an epiphany on new-age consumerism or something seemed off with the statement. As it turns out, it is a bit of both! Right from the beginning it seemed like an over generalization about consumer attention and buying behaviors, and I decided to go all left-brain and analyze what is going on here.

Minimalism should be divided into two forms, minimalist design (visual art, architecture, etc.) and minimalism as a lifestyle (living principles). I feel like the two should be discussed separately in order for people to make sense about what is going on here.

Design

The term minimalism describes American art and design movements beginning in the late 60s where the work was stripped down to only its fundamentals. Work by Piet Mondrian can give you a good idea of what minimalist design is all about. Even though advertising can be artistic in nature, for the most part it should be kept separate from being associated with actual art.

We were too quick to call well-designed ‘negative space’ layouts on products, magazines and websites as being minimalism. Aesthetic composition in order to sell more products, gain more readers or increase page views is not minimalism. It is true that the proper use of white space, for example, can be more effective for drawing the eye than cluttered flash and glamour.

It comes down to selling products. If everyone is going with flash and glamour then it makes sense to use more negative space in order to stand out. It is also all about who your target market is – you will see a lot of upscale brands using this to communicate an elegant or classic appearance.

Lifestyle

This phenomenon of living a minimalist lifestyle is adventurous, but it is also brilliant marketing! I am sure there is much more to minimalism than not having many material goods. I see how less clutter in one’s life could be mentally exhilarating.

One of the main principals is that you are free to travel and move with little restriction. I’m all for less restriction. Heck, it only seemed right to work on this post without pants on! But, why don’t these people write blogs, sell books or tweet about being a new-age nomad? Because… being a nomad doesn’t sound sexy.

Thus, Minimalists have created a mental framework for people to identify with and associated benefits to that framework in order to sell their books. That sounds like pretty good marketing to me.

Closing Thoughts

I think Chuck Westbrook said it best in his comments: “We’re living in a society that ultimately wants less.”

Nope. We live in a society that has more debt than ever before, has more stuff than ever before, eats more food than ever before, and scatters its attention out to more than ever before.

What are your thoughts? Does this change your opinion of minimalism?

The Creative Life: (Re)Learning How to Play

May 24, 2010 · 41 comments

Today’s post comes courtesy of Cali Harris. Cali is an amazing young woman and I couldn’t be happier to be able to call her a good friend. She is insightful and eternally optimistic, not to mention a heck of a salsa dancer (or so I hear). Enjoy the post below, and be sure to say hello to Cali on Twitter today!

In the amorphous social category that is “Gen Y,” there is a lot of talk around combining work and personal interests, or turning a hobby into a stream of income, or–dare I echo the mantra of GenYers–”following your passion.” And though I am poking fun (just a little) at what seems to me to be an echo chamber of self-affirmations, I know there are people who have created a life-work that is important to them and that is important in their field.

Creators

As I continue to meet people who have been able to figure out this desirable blending of work and passion, I find several common personality traits. The one that really jumps out at me is creativity.

We’re all creators. We may write lines of code, or design logos, or cultivate business relationships. We might create community or processes to manage projects. That we all create something means that we most likely run into creativity ruts. While there are tons of tips, tricks and hacks on how to get your creativity groove back, my latest go-to hack has been playing.

(Re)Learning How to Play

We all played when we were young. I know that in my adult life, in so many ways I’ve stopped playing–I don’t have a playful attitude nearly enough. I’m not sure what inspired it, but recently I’ve made an effort to (literally) play more. I’ve visited parks to swing or play frisbee or go down a slide. I have five nephews under the age of six, so I’ve also spent a lot of time building rocket ships with Legos or zooming around Micro Machines or building blanket forts.

This playtime has certainly helped me to relax and to feel a little freer. But I’ve also made a conscious effort to (re)learn how to play in the more serious parts of my life, like in work and grad school. I have remixed and reinvigorated my creativity in a few playful ways. I bought a stockload of crayons, colored pencils and butcher paper so I could color and brainstorm. I scribble on chalk- and whiteboards any chance I get. I make mind maps and doodle when I have a new idea. Occasionally I steal my nephews’ Legos and attempt to build a concept using only those rectangular interlocking blocks. Sometimes I force myself to draw pictures when I have writer’s block.

Basically, I try to recreate that same feeling of freedom I feel when swinging on a tire swing at the park when I’m trying to tackle more “serious” projects. It lets the creator in me be more creative. While there are, of course, certain aspects of our life-work that aren’t playgrounds (hm…legal and financial issues come to mind), I believe that as creators we have limitless opportunities to play.

Have you played lately? Are there any playful things you do to lead a more creative life?

(Image c/o Sir Fish)

Freedom Fighting and Business Building

May 21, 2010 · 16 comments

The following is a guest post from Maren Kate. Maren is an entrepreneur, aspiring internet marketer and avid writer. Do yourself a favor and follow Maren on her journey by reading her blog, Escaping the 9 to 5.

One of the reasons I’ve always loved Matt’s blog is because he encourages us to live a life that is less restricted and the idea of no pants is as unrestricted as it gets. But why just lead a life without pants? Why can’t you build a business or be an entrepreneur while maintaining a state of pantlessness?

Now I’m not, necessarily, encouraging you to go to work without your pants (but if you do PLEASE send me photos!) nor am I saying the fastest way to entrepreneurial success is to go slack/skirt-less. But the concept of building a business that helps you live a life without restrictions is at the heart of everything I do and one of the best paths (I believe) to fulfilling all your dreams.

Money makes the world go round…

Now listen, don’t get all holier-than-thou on me, you and I both know that currency (regardless of what form it takes) is what drives the global economy. Money is not evil, nor is it good. It just is. It’s a placeholder for value and in our world we trade perceived value for perceived value every day. Your dollar isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on without ‘perceived value’ and I hate to break it to you but neither is that Coke you just spent 2 bucks on.

So you can either throw a hissy and say how ‘unfair’ it is that you can’t just live in a society where money doesn’t matter or you can say ‘hey I want to do X, Y and Z’ and for some of those it’ll take money… thus I need to make sure money isn’t an ‘issue’ in my life anymore.

What’s the number one reason people say they can’t do something…

If you guessed MONEY you’d be right! Ask 10 of your friends what they’d love to do if they could – 9 of them will say something related to money (and that one hippy friend will say ‘world peace man’). Now ask them “why haven’t you done it then?” and they’ll look at you – smirk – and respond with “Money Bro!” (maybe they won’t say bro, but you get the point).

If you had infinite amounts of money would your life be perfect?

Most people, whether they admit it or not actually think that tons of money would bring happiness. The fact is this couldn’t be further from the truth. I know this sounds weird. It’s hard for people to here that for most to live the life of their dreams they need some amount of money but if you pursue money as your main goal you won’t be happy.

Let me explain: for most of my young life I was obsessed with getting money. For me money = happiness because I thought ‘well with money I can do all the things I’ve always wanted to do‘. It took me a lot of soul searching and reading several pivotal books to realize that if I had a million bucks I’d buy some crap, take some trips but then be just as unsatisfied as I was before – just blowing my nose into hundos instead of Kleenex.

It took me realizing that money wasn’t my goal but instead I was chasing freedom before I could break free from this awful belief cycle and start living my life. I realized that I didn’t want money necessarily, it was just the means to the end, the end was freedom: the freedom to pick up and travel Europe if I wanted to, the freedom to not be in debt, the freedom to provide for myself and others who may need help.

These goals were far more enlightened than money for money’s sake and the craziest part is AS SOON as I realized I wasn’t fighting for money but for freedom the money started pouring in.

Start a business, become a freedom fighter…

I consider myself a freedom fighter. Why? Because I fight for my freedom (obviously!). I refuse to work 9 to 5 for a corporation who sees me as a replaceable drone and I don’t like living the one precious life I have on someone else’s terms. Now I could be a freedom fighter and hide out in caves fighting the insurgents or I could be an entrepreneurial freedom fighter (much safer and no foxholes) and fight the man while building up an amazing life for myself through the means I have available.

Starting your own business can be anything from selling your artwork on the street, to consulting, to starting a website that becomes the next eBay. A successful business gives you enough to live on (and then some) as well as fulfills you because you are doing something you’re passionate about.

So let me ask you this? Are you completely happy in what your doing now? If not then you must get out now! Life is too short to work a job you hate and do mediocre things. You must fight for a life where you can be fulfilled, be successful and help others do the same! If it takes you the next five years of hard work to build a business that will last a lifetime it’s worth it. Think of the trade off? You could either stay in your ‘golden handcuffs’ slaving away in the corporate world, or you could break free and chose your own path.

How to be a truly pantless entrepreneur…

So what does this have to do with living life without pants? Well it means that you chose a path that not only fulfills your creative side but also gives you enough money to live a life unhindered. It means you don’t answer to suits all day, nor are you forced to wear one yourself (unless you want to of course!). Being a pantless entrepreneur means that you see the status quo (the state of being fully dressed) and go in the complete opposite direction.

Do you have what it takes to rip off the pants that bind you and drop your drawers in protest (hypothetically of course)? If so you have an amazing life in front of you. One that isn’t defined by what’s ‘normal’ but instead one that is defined by freedom, by fulfillment and most importantly by getting the most out of life.

The Era of Overcommitment

May 19, 2010 · 22 comments

The following is a guest post from Teresa Basich. Teresa is a 20-something currently living in sunny Southern California and working as Content Marketing Manager for the top-notch social media monitoring technology firm Radian6. Teresa is by far one of the most grounded and intelligent people I know – she is already doing some amazing things and it is a pleasure for me to be able to call her a friend. Check out more of her writing over at Writing on Purpose.

When Matt asked me to contribute a guest post during his weeks away from this crazy, pantsless place, the first thing I did was look at my calendar. I’ve never been much of a calendar user; it’s never been my M.O. to live such a framed-out life. But, being in the industry I’m in, and being surrounded by such incredibly driven people, I’ve reached a point where I can’t live without a calendar.

In typical Teresa fashion, part of me is proud to have reached this calendar-necessitating point in my life – it seems like a right of professional passage. But, a substantial part of me is also sorely disappointed to be living in time blocks. I mean, this was a guest blog post we’re talking about. I shouldn’t have had to check my calendar.

Or should I have?

There’s a push now more than ever to do it all, to be all that you can be even if that person is someone you’d hate being in the long run. The race to the top is fierce and, like a highway, your default is supposed to be the speed of everyone else, which will inevitably be faster than anything you’re comfortable with. Even if you’re a go-getter.

Unsurprisingly, this faster-than-light pace we’ve been maintaining for the past few years is finally starting to take its toll. I know more than a handful of people who are starting to crumble under the pressure of high demands, both professional and personal, and the pressure of competition or ambition or whatever the hell pushes them to keep going. Keep driving. Make things happen. Sleep when you’re dead.

When is it enough? I’ve asked this before and I’ll continue to ask it until people actually consider it for more than the two seconds they have to actually think freely about a question. I’ll continue to ask it because when we over-commit, when we push ourselves past our own personal breaking point, we cheat ourselves, our family, our friends, and our work out of serious quality.

Pace and quantity now outshine thoroughness and quality, and that’s lame. That’s all there is to it. From a personal perspective, I’m finally working to pare down my commitments, make the time to think fully through my projects, block out distractions when necessary, and not get sucked into the overcommitted lifestyle that seems to be ruining people on an epic scale.

It’s hard to do, to not get swept away by the speed with which the people around me live their lives. And sometimes I doubt it’s worth it. But the moments in which I can take a full breath because I know I have the time and energy to get something done to the best of my ability are beyond confirmation that I’ve made the right choice to slow down. Maybe I won’t have tons of money, multiple book deals, or invites to all the parties, but at least I’ll know at the end of the day I gave myself the space to do the best I could.

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