Huge props to Makena Sage for turning me on to the Evernote Hello App, a business card scanning app for iPhone and Android,

I just breezed through a pile of business cards that had been sitting under my desk for months… The thought of entering all those contacts manually was daunting to me, and this made it a snap.

The Hello App takes a pic, automatically recognizes/scans the phone and email, allows you to merge the contact into iPhone address book, and looks up their LinkedIn and Facebook for social connecting if you want. Then syncs it all up to Evernote for backup. Amazing!

You can also enter contextual and follow-up notes about the person, which is very useful if you’re meeting lots of people at once, say at a conference.

And you can also enter people’s info in manually (and snap a photo) quite easily, if they don’t have a card. This is better than entering their info into your address book directly because you can put in the contextual notes about who they are and what kind of follow up you want to make–otherwise, a new contact might just get eaten alive and swallowed in your address book before you remember to follow up.

This one will make the life of any obsessive networker/connector like me MUCH EASIER. Highly recommended. Thank you Makena!

Pro-Junk-Food Activism- brought to you by Pepsi

Here’s the crazy thing. On a surface level, I actually agree with the sentiment the sign above expresses. I *don’t* believe bureaucrats should be able to tell you that you can’t buy and drink a 32oz soda, if you want to do with your life and your body.

(If you don’t know the context- Mayor Bloomberg has created a ban in NYC on sale of soda drinks larger than 16oz, going into effect next week.)

But here’s the deeper problem. The fact that we already have a culture in which it is viewed as normal and acceptable to intake that much refined sugar in one sitting or day–and that the majority of people in our world now view that as normal (whether by soda or corn syrup in food or whatever)–already puts us all into the zone of true collective cultural insanity.

There is a complex of consciousness that arises from consuming lots of refined sugar, which I call “Junk Food Consciousness”.

The main features of Junk Food Consciousness are: foggy thinking; irritability; low, depressed mood; low energy; pessimistic thoughts; and inability to escape ANTs (automatic negative thoughts).

All of this is so depressing, that people caught in Junk Food Consciousness then drink lots of coffee (or a 24oz sugar-laden Red Bull!) to wake up and get some energy. And then they’re so wired and stressed by the end of the day, they need to go out and drink a few beers with their friends to “blow off steam.” And then they wake up groggy and hung over, so they go to the psychopharmacologist (or just their general practitioner) and pop some Prozac or Zoloft for their low mood…

And pretty soon, they’re not just in Junk Food Consciousness, they’re in Junk Food-Coffee-Red Bull-Beer-Prozac-Zoloft Consciousness…Read More

When I look around and take stock of what I and my friends value most, one of the highest values is *travel*. Look at what people post about here on FB, what they talk about, what they get most excited about. Travel has to be one of the top 5 values of my tribe, right up there with committed love and good sex.

I have benefitted from the power of travel as much as anyone else. Some of my formative experiences in my life occurred over several trips to Cuba in my early 20s.

And yet, it seems to me, *travel* cannot be an end in itself. It is a profoundly energy-intensive activity. True, once the transportation networks are already built, the marginal impact of any one instance of traveling on that network may be low. But in general, it seems to me that setting up society with the ideal that anyone can travel anywhere for any reason, including the most frivolous of reasons (and pouring large amounts of resources into subsidizing a fossil-fuel based system in support of that ideal), is one of the most energy-intensive, ungrounded, and unsustainable things we humans have created.

For a more sustainable society, I believe that we should all collectively de-emphasize *travel* as an end in itself. Instead, our question should become, “travel for what purpose?” I think we should move towards an ethic where every instance of major travel, we ask, “How is this travel benefitting me and the planet?” If we don’t have a good answer to that question, then perhaps we should reconsider that particular trip.

Unless large numbers of us start thinking about how our current lifestyles feed into (and feed upon) unsustainable systems, and how our lifestyles could instead be shaped to support and be supported by sustainable alternatives, then we as a collective are in deep do-do.

A couple of years back, AOL filmed a clip about how I proposed to Jena. They just posted it recently. Makes me misty eyed, remembering that beautiful day on the Brooklyn Bridge when we declared our eternal love…

These days, the “cool kids” at school don’t cut class and smoke weed in the back alley behind the school, like they did back when I was in school…

These days, the cool kids drop out, say F.U! to tens or hundreds of thousands in student debt and bloated tuition bills, start companies, and build lives for themselves, on their own terms, long before parents and professors tell them they now have “permission” to be adults.

Listen here to a special call I did with Dale Stephens, author of the new book from Penguin, Hacking Your Education: Ditch the Lectures, Save Tens of Thousands, and Learn More Than Your Peers Ever Will. 

Dale Stephens is a Thiel Fellow, has been featured in every media outlet you could imagine, and is the founder of UnCollege.org. He and I were both featured in the New York Times Sunday Styles article “Saying No to College,” and we shared the stage at TEDxSF on the failure of the higher education system.

Dale is an expert on the new youth-led alternatives that are now popping up like flowers amidst the college loan wasteland that parents have made of their children’s lives (parents have done this by foisting on children outmoded, out-of-touch, retrograde notions of education.)

Screw debt and five-figure tuition bills: get educated on your own, says Dale. Listen as we take this issue head on, and teach you real-world skills for educating yourself, the secret methods that out-of-touch parents, teachers, and professors don’t want you to know about, because they fly in the face of every bureaucratic notion that the older generations still rally around like lemmings jumping off the Titanic.

This recorded call is for you if:

• You are a parent or prospective parent (Listening to this call may save you hundreds of thousands of dollars in college tuition that you won’t need to save for- and it may save your child from becoming a victim of indentured student-hood, via our nation’s broken and bloated perpetual student debt fiasco.)
• You are thinking of plunking down hundreds of thousands of dollars on a graduate education. (HEAVEN’S NO! THIS CALL MAY SAVE YOU!!!)
• You are currently a college student and want to learn how to get the most out of your student years, for the least amount of money.
• You are currently a student and are thinking of getting the hell out of dodge, and joining all the other cool kids, by saying “No thanks” to your parents’ antediluvian ideas about education.

Listen to the call here. (To download, CTRL-click on a Mac, right-click on a PC, and select “Save As”)

And, while you’re at it, order a copy of Dale’s great new book Hacking Your Education.

Each of us has what I call a “revenue ceiling”… That amount of revenue that seems impossibly high to achieve in your business or career.

For years, that ceiling for me was just $50,000. That’s right. In 2007, when I was 30, I earned $8,000 from freelancing. I managed to make that work by moving to a 3rd-world country, where the cost of living was cheap (the dark side of “Lifestyle Design”…)

Then, back in the US, I got closer to my ceiling, by bumping up my earning to $25K the next year. Then the next year I finally broke my “ceiling”, bringing in $50K the next two years.

When that happened, my new ceiling—that amount that seemed impossibly high for me and far away—became $100K. The vaunted six-figures.

Then in 2010, I broke that ceiling for the first time.

Now my new ceiling is $200K revenue from doing what I love—writing and helping people. And you know what? I think I’m going to break it. If not this year, then next.

Why am I so confident now that I will?

Because I’ve now had the visceral experience of breaking through my revenue ceilings.

I’ve had the experience of feeling like some number was impossibly high for me, given my current resources, skills, and time. Then watching that feeling of impossibility vanish, as I break through that number eventually, without even sweating too much.

Throughout this process of breaking through revenue ceilings (and more important, breaking through the concept of ceilings)…

Two people have been crucial and indispensable in this process to me.

Those two people are my mentors, Bryan Franklin & Jennifer Russell. (If you want to learn how I brought such high-powered mentors into my life, here’s an article I wrote about it in Forbes.)

Bryan Franklin, one of Silicon Valley’s most sought-after “secret weapons” for CEOs and other execs of high-scale tech startups, has helped 7 companies grow to revenues or valuation of $1 billion or more. That’s billion with a B. (Still above my own revenue ceiling! But not for the companies Bryan advises…)

In a special 90-minute call I hosted with Bryan and Jennifer, you get access to Bryan and Jennifer’s top mindset and behavior shifts for breaking through the revenue ceiling in YOUR business and career.

Here are some of the things we covered in this call:

• Are there nagging problems that have been persisting in your business for years? Bryan says, “If you’re a capable person, and you’ve been having the same problem for more than 3 months, then you haven’t identified the right problem. You’ve had the experience of working to solve a problem one way for a long time and it’s still not getting solved. And then you work on a different problem, and the original “problem” instantly dissolves. It turns out, you were trying to solve the wrong problem. There’s a technique for actually applying that experience and insight systematically, instead of haphazardly, to your business, so that problems which have been plaguing your business for years dissolve as if overnight.”
• Another reason the revenue ceilings persist in your business is that you’ve been trying to break through it with your strengths, not your weaknesses. Yes, you read that correctly. Jennifer says: “Let’s say you’re strong in your business relationships, but weak in your personal habits as a leader. If you want to earn twice as much revenue, you might think, ‘We need to get a lot better business relationships, because we’re good at those, that’s what’s worked for us in the past.’ Well, it turns out, a 5% increase in the quality of your personal habits might double the business. Because that was your weakest link. There’s enormous opportunity for leverage, when you focus just a little attention on your weakest links.”
• Are you under the false belief that you need more time in your business, so you can get more work done each day and week? Bryan says: “You don’t need more time. What you actually need is a better understanding of how and where you provide value to your own business. It’s only because you don’t quite understand how that works, that it occurs to you like you need more time. There *is* a way out of this time quandary, and it works the same way every time. By getting much more clear on how exactly you are providing value as a leader in your own business. Time problems vanish quickly when you focus on that, instead of on time problems.”
• Why you may be winning the wrong game in your current business
• The importance of shrink-wrapping your commitments (what does that mean? Listen to the class :)
• The crucial important of letting balls drop in your business (yes, you read that correctly)
• The 5 components of your Ceiling of Complexity- and how to break through them. (What is a Ceiling of Complexity anyway? You better find out on this recording, if you want your revenue to grow this year…)

These are just a few of the insights and shifts you will learn in this call. Bryan and Jennifer get paid thousands of dollars an hour to consult on rapid scale with billion-dollar companies in Silicon Valley.

And in this call, you get access to their brains and wisdom without charge, for 90-minutes.

Listen to the call instantly here: Breaking Through Your Revenue Ceiling
(Right-click to download; CTRL-click on a Mac)

I love you as a human being. (I hope you love me as a human being too.)

I’m overwhelmed with all the communication in my life. All the commitment, projects, expectations. (I’ll bet you are too–I don’t know a single person who isn’t.)

So, I can’t respond right now.

Or, if I were to used the “responsible” language of all those personal growth workshops I take in Northern California, I’d say, “I’m choosing not to respond right now.” As technically, I *could* respond.

But I think I’d go crazy if I responded to everything. And I’ve been crazy before. So yes, I’m choosing not to respond right now.

I hope you don’t take it personally. This means absolutely nothing about you. (“It’s not you, it’s me.) I’m not saying that facetiously.

I’m just unbelievably, incredibly, insanely overwhelmed.

And honestly, if I ever get out of this overwhelm, I also just want space in my life. Space to create, space to think, space to be with my closest loved ones and love them more.

(The poet Keats called this spaciousness “negative capability.” I call it the”joyous void.” Nothingness. Whatever it’s called, it’s great stuff. My guess is you’re craving more of that spaciousness in your life too.).

I love you as a human being. Even if I don’t know you. Because all human beings are, at root, lovable.

Even me–I hope you’ll think–when I get overwhelmed and don’t respond to all my communications.

And if you don’t think so, and get mad at me or feel upset or hurt or rejected (which I hope won’t happen), I love you still.

Now, with this extra spaciousness in your own life, go forth and create some more kickass-ness.

P.S.ssst…. Pass it on…. I’ll bet you’re feeling a lot of the same things I express in this post. Feel free to send other people to this post. And tell them to do the same. Maybe we’ll all start having more compassion for each other when we don’t respond to each other. Seems that more compassion is only way out of this digital overwhelm we’re all finding ourselves in in this crazy stage of humanity’s development.

At Burning Man, I received the greatest surprise gift I’ve ever received in my whole life. Perhaps the greatest surprise I’ll *ever* receive again.

It happened like this.

My friend and mentor Bryan Franklin was very excited about putting on a DJ set at our camp. A successful Silicon Valley executive coach, he had also been a serious electronic music producer as a side-passion for years. He decided that this DJ set was going to be the birth of the public persona as a producer and DJ, under his stage name NIMITAE.

(NIMITAE stands for “Nothing is More Important Than Anything Else.” You can ask him what that means, but probably not knowing is just as important as knowing… ;-)

So NIMITAE, as he was going by on the playa, was all excited about this show he was putting on, in fact, he couldn’t stop talking about it. He said he was incredibly nervous about it, but I couldn’t understand why, as I’d been hearing him play his music informally for year at parties and such.

In recent years, he has been moved to create songs in honor of couples whom he finds inspiring in his community. He started by creating a song about our friends Kate and David Niebauer, called Earth on Fire, which he unveiled at our New Years party two years ago.

Then he created a song inspired by our friends Eben Pagan and Annie Lalla (who met at Burning Man 2009), called Guru And The Avatar.

Then, in his most personally meaningful creation yet, he created one in honor of his own relationship with his bride-to-be, Jennifer Russell. He unveiled this song, called Warrior Catches Thief as his first dance with Jennifer, at the reception to their wedding last June.

So, about 50 of our friends and campmates were gathered for NIMITAE’s DJ set of original music at the chill space of our camp, Camp Mystic, Wednesday night of Burning Man this year. I thought it was going to be a 3-song set, as Bryan has created 3 songs.

He played the first song, Earth on Fire, and Kate danced to it beautifully solo. (David was not at Burning Man that year.)

Then he played the second song, Guru And the Avatar, and Annie and Eben danced perhaps their hottest dance ever to it in front of everyone.

Then, NIMITAE said on the mic, “I’m having a little trouble finding the next song.”

I called out from the crowd, “I have it on my laptop!”, as I have all 3 of his original songs there, easily accessible.

Bryan said to the crowd, “Michael thinks he has the next song on his laptop.” The crowd laughed. I thought it was strange that Bryan would make fun of me like that for offering to help. And I didn’t understand why the crowd laughed.

As Bryan starting describing the couple that inspired his third song of the set, something seemed off. “Wait, that doesn’t sound like Bryan and Jennifer at all,” I thought.

Then, as he described more, I thought, “Wait, that kinda sounds like… me and Jena!”

When NIMITAE finished describing the couple that inspired the song, he said, “And this song is called… Temple of Erotic Innocence.” And as he pressed Play on it, he pointed right at me and Jena…

NIMITAE – Temple Of Erotic Innocence by NIMITAE

Jena and I got up and did something we will probably never have the opportunity to do again… an impromptu, improvisational dance performance, to a surprise song written about us and in honor of us, unveiled to us in that very moment by one of our favorite musicians in the world.

We danced, we laughed, we smiled, we hugged, we kissed, we cried.

And for the next six minutes, we basked in receiving the greatest surprise gift of our lives.

Here is a video that captures some of that moment (NIMITAE dances in silver in the middle of the clip…)

It turns out, NIMITAE had been spending months, since his wedding, creating and preparing the song for this very unveiling. He enlisted our dear friend Ariel White to sing haunting melodies in Gaelic, so that the song would have both Irish influences (reflecting Jena’s roots) and latin influences (reflecting my life-long passion for salsa music and dance.) (Ariel can be seen dancing directly to the right of NIMITAE in the middle of the video clip above.)

The title is a mix of one concept that is core to me and my spirituality and thinking—”The Temple of Wife Worship“—and of a concept that is central to Jena’s philosophy and teachings, “erotic innocence.” They combine to make Temple of Erotic Innocence.

Thank you Bryan. Thank you Ariel. We love you, and we will always be grateful.

1. Message first.
2. Money second.
3. Money is still important, as it helps you get your message out. So don’t ignore it. But don’t put it first!

For a while, I have been stepping into my identity as an artist. As opposed to a marketer or businessperson.

What I mean by *artist* is, someone who is moved primarily by a message, and spreading that message, not by earning money or building a repeatable, systematized business. (Can art truly be repeated or systematized?)

And yet, the stereotype and reality of the “starving artist” or “struggling artist” persists. I certainly paid my dues on that front, as a seriously struggling writer in my 20s. Though I was never close to starving, I certainly struggled plenty as my career as a writer emerged.

I’ll let others judge the value of my art (which I express in my writing every day, and in what I’m co-creating with all of you in my tribe every day.)

But I do believe I’ve created something truly of value in my own lifestyle—in the way I’ve learned to *live* as an artist. I have never felt so creatively free, never felt that my message was reaching as wide an audience, or never felt as materially abundant as I do right now.

I’m not an insanely wealthy man in a financial sense. But I have enough resources flowing through my life to live very comfortably. And more important, I have the resources flowing through my life to invest it back in spreading my message, via media, Web, PR, travel, networking, connecting, relationship-building.

(Something those of the “starving artist” mentality neglect: if you don’t have money to buy food, you probably also don’t have money to buy a nice web design or travel to an important networking conference, to spread your message. When living an integrated life, money—and the getting of it—*supports* the spread of art, rather than taking away from it. Be your own arts patron!)

And, most important, I have the resources to make time and space to devote myself to creating and spreading a wider message that is important to me.

The creative life, the artistic life—without the struggling or starving.

That is what I seem to come upon, and that, I am certain, has value for a lot of other people besides me.

Yet, when I look around me, I see very little serious business/marketing/branding advice aimed at people who primarily identify as artists (in the sense I’ve described above), instead of identifying as marketers or businesspeople.

I once purchased an info-product purportedly aimed at helping book authors market their books—and the resounding message from all the speakers in the training was: don’t fool yourself trying to be a book author! Become a businessperson with a backend and a niche and a bunch of upsells! etc etc.

Yes, but what is left then for the foolish ones? What is left for the crazy fools like me? The ones who do not wish to identify as businesspeople with backends or niches or upsells, but as… artists? With earth-changing messages to spread?

I would like to fill that gap. I’d like to start offering advice on how to build the creative/artistic career and lifestyle I currently enjoy, *including* living a life of material comfort and abundance (not insane $$$$, but exactly what I said: comfort and abundance).

And achieving that material abundance in a way that actually *supports* your creative mission, rather than forcing you to compromise it.

I’d also like to help people navigate questions such as:

–> How do you balance engaging with fans, with the isolation & contemplation necessary for serious artistic creation and inspiration?

–> How do you bring in money in a way that doesn’t feel like a soul-draining “day job,” without requiring that your art be fantastically commercially successful either? What is the in between? Here’s a hint in the next paragraph:

–> The art of consulting *around* your art form (which is neither “art” nor is it a soul-deadening meaningless day job) but a lucrative place in between which funds and your true art.) i.e., the art of self-patronage.

–> How to stay consistently inspired to create art every day. Hint: it ain’t about forcing yourself to sit down at your desk when you’re uninspired. It’s about getting *away* from your desk regularly, and finding ways to connect to your creative source, whatever that might be (I can show you how)

–> How the artistic life intersects with love, relationships, and marriage. How to relate and create household harmony when you and your significant are both artists and have very different creative processes and styles–or how to co-exist when one of you identifies as an artist and the other doesn’t.

–> How to develop a personal brand as an artist—which is very different than developing a personal brand as a business. (Absolutely *ZERO* discussion about finding a “niche”: ARTISTS DON’T HAVE NICHES!)

–> How to develop an audience. (Note: I said audience. I did not say “Twitter followers” or “Likes”.) One can have a lot of Twitter follows and “likes”—particularly through dodgy manipulations—without having an audience. And one can have few #s in your Twitter/Facebook count, but have an audience.

–> And my personal favorite topic of all, I think the root question all artists struggle with: How to change a system, while living inside that system.

I’ve been meaning to teach a class for a while.

So here it is, just birthed recently:

How to Live as an Artist
A Course on All the Topics Above
by Michael Ellsberg

–> Mon, Sep. 10th, Mon Sep. 17, Tues Sep. 25, and Mon Oct. 1st – with optional bonus sessions after.
[ALL course sessions will be recorded and sent to all students after each class. If you sign up after the course has started, you still get access to all class recordings.]

–> Surprise Guest Teachers (the most awesome Abundant Artists I know of!)

–> 8PM-9:30PM Eastern, via teleseminar; 45 minutes discourse per session, 45 minutes Q+A

–> $150 for the series: Pay via this PayPal link. (Once your payment goes through, click “Return the Michael Ellsberg” from the PayPal confirmation page, and that will take you to the course Welcome materials.)

–> Oh yeah, I’ve also created a private Facebook Group for all of us, so we can discuss/meet/interact with each other, and keep the dialogue alive after the course.

Thank you, my tribe, for creating the space for me to express my creativity process and share my most cutting-edge thoughts in this way. I hope to see a lot of you in this course—and to completely turn your life as an artist (or aspiring artist) upside down.

No more “striving” artist. How about *thriving* artist?

No more lifestyle of “aspiring” as an artist. How about a lifestyle of *inspiring* artist.

I’m super excited to *meet* any of you who are passionate about learning how to live as a constantly-inspired, materially comfortable, message-bearing, earth-changing, audience-delighting, successful ARTIST!

Sign up here (Once your payment goes through, click “Return the Michael Ellsberg” from the PayPal confirmation page, and that will take you to the course Welcome materials.)

Have you ever thought you were crazy?

I wonder that about myself almost every day. Certainly once a week.

If you’re reading this, then I assume you’re an entrepreneur, freelancer, artist, or otherwise have (or dream of having) some kind of entrepreneurial/artistic/creative career.

Which means, I know a little somethin’ about you…

(Shhh… I won’t tell anyone!)

It means, you’re crazy.

At least, a little bit.

Just like me.

I just wrote this piece on Forbes called I’m an Entrepreneur… I Need a Shrink!

If you’ve ever wondered if you’re crazy, or had people tell you that your dreams are crazy, or thought about throwing in the towel and getting a “normal” job just like your parent/teacher/professor/aunt/uncle/pastor/rabbi told you to…

Then I hope you read this piece… as it will help you realize you’re not so crazy after all.

Or maybe, the way in which you march to your own beat (i.e., that way in which you *are* “crazy”)… is the most precious, productive, fruitful, economically valuable part about you.

In this age of saturated markets, zero barriers-to-entry, and instant copy-cats, the thing that will set you apart is your own brand of entrepreneurial crazy—differentiating you from all the sheeple and me-too’s and also-rans.

Because, with all due respect to *your* crazy… No one’s going to copy it!

If they even tried to base a brand around copying someone else’s crazy—well, then, they’d be crazy too. (But in a dumb way, not in the brilliant, unique way you are.)

Embrace your crazy. Love your crazy. Nurture and protect your crazy.

I hope this article empowers you to do so.

Love,

–Michael