7 Ways to Start Living the Life You Really Want

This is a guest post by Sean Ogle, a Tropical MBA alum. Today he launches Location Rebel. It teaches you how to get started living a location independent lifestyle by learning real skills that people are willing to pay for. If you are just getting started generating income from anywhere, Sean is your guy. His words next:

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Are you currently living the life you really want?

It took me years to get past all of my own misconceptions about what I should do and start doing the stuff I wanted to do.

For those of you who don’t know me, I was the very first student of the Tropical MBA back in early 2010. Before that, I wore a suit and tie working as a financial analyst.

I had two goals in life: 1) have a bunch of good stories and, 2) run my own business.

That old job wasn’t helping.

Fast forward 20 months. As I write this I’m on a flight to Bali to hang out with the current Tropical MBA crew for a few months and work remotely. I’ve achieved everything I set out to do when I joined the TMBA. I’ve spent a considerable amount of time thinking about how I got from point A to point B.

Here’s my 7 top tips.

Sean and I Trying to Look Cool

Be Specific About What You Want.

The biggest problem most people who are unhappy have is that they don’t actually know what they want.

If you’re serious about changing things, make a list of everything you’d like to do. It could be a bucket list, or just a list of aspirations.

Think about how you’d like to spend a typical day. Think about the work that you’d be most interested in. Consider all of your hobbies and add them to the list.

Now you’re getting somewhere.

You’ll find a way to make things work, and if you’re serious about making your dream life a reality, then you’ll need to do this sooner or later – so why not start now?

Stop Making Excuses and Start Taking Risks

When was the last time your worst case scenario actually happened? We all get paralyzed by fear and uncertainty, but once you overcome that, you realize that life isn’t nearly as scary as we make it out to be.

“My dad said I couldn’t” is no longer a valid excuse. The only person responsible for your happiness is yourself. You are the only person that can take responsibility for your success.

Start a Blog.

I am sitting on this plane because of my blog. I wouldn’t have joined the Tropical MBA, I wouldn’t have dozens of cool stories, and I definitely wouldn’t have multiple residual income streams from my online efforts.

If you start a blog, and take it seriously, you have no idea the incredible positive effect it can have on your life.

Narrow Your Focus and Create a Detailed Action Plan.

In the beginning, you’ll need focus– more than you think. Business, relationships, etc. 80/20 the hell out of it, and you’ll be way better off for it.

If you can devise a set of goals for the next day, week, month, you’re going to be much more likely to follow through.

Aren’t sure how to get there?

Find someone else’s map and do what they did! It gets addicting. That’s why I love to do lists so much. The feeling of crossing something off just makes me that much more motivated to cross off the next one.

Introduce Yourself.

Sure you can probably find a way to start building your business by yourself, but why would you want to? It’s way easier and more fun to surround yourself with people doing similar stuff to you.

Find people who are doing the things you want, and shoot them a short email saying hi. Go to meetups in your city. Expand your network, and you’ll be glad you did. You never know when those random contacts will pay off in a big way.

Get Educated and Learn By Taking Action.

It doesn’t take nearly as much time to learn new skills as you think it does. Inside a couple months I helped Dan build up one of his websites from non- existent to over $5k in sales through SEO. Did I know anything about SEO before I got there. Hell no.

Whether you have specific lifestyle goals or business goals, get online and start learning the skills necessary to get you there. Why spend 4 years in a university when you could spend 4 months or 4 weeks from your laptop learning way more relvant information?

Join a Community of Like-Minded People Who Can Support You.

Dan’s Dynamite Circle forum is an incredible resource for this. I’ve been in there since the beginning and the quality of information that is coming out of their members is remarkable.

Today I’ve also re-opened the doors to my business course and community, Location Rebel. The goal of the site is to help people learn real skills in order to build a business they can run from anywhere on the planet. Many members of the inaugural group have already found clients and are building their business as we speak.

If you’re looking to live the “Tropical MBA” lifestyle, I really believe there’s no better site out there today.

If you have any questions about the Location Rebel community, feel free to shoot me an email. (Sean@LocationRebel.com)

Cheers,
Sean

Sean Ogle writes about travel and entrepreneurship at Location 180, and frequently crashes on Dan’s couch and drinks his beer whenever possible. (That’s tip #8)

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